If I were you, I would opt to show the drive on the desktop so that you can drag it to the trash.

Drag the external's icon to the trash, wait about 15 seconds, and then unplug it. Even though it will appear that the drive has been unmounted (the icon disappears from the desktop), it takes slightly longer to actually unmount it.

If you can't see the drive on the desktop, you can use Disk Utility. Select the drive in the DU window and click Unmount. Again, wait about 15 seconds before unplugging it.

Alternatively, shut the computer down normally. During the shutdown process, the drive is automatically unmounted. Once shutdown is complete, you can unplug the drive.



Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365