Automatically launch a program or action when an external drive or disk is connected

Question

I have an external drive. Is it possible to launch a program or perform an action when I connect it or plug it in?

pesche · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-10 13:05:51Z

4

Marco Polo can perform actions (you specify) based on attached USB devices.

Edit: MarcoPolo isn't supported anymore, but there is a maintained fork of it: ControlPlane

pesche

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answered Jan 5, 2011 at 21:39

user588

Thank, it works! Steps to configure Marco Polo: (1) Create a context, e.g. DTVP (2) Plug the drive, create a USB rule for this context and increase its confidence to 100% (3) Setup an Open action for /Volumes/DTVP/Mac/DTVP.app. Voilà!
– pesche
Commented Jan 5, 2011 at 22:07

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Daniel Beck · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-08 13:26:47Z

2

The likely most robust solution is to create a launchd job with the StartOnMount property set to -boolean YES:

StartOnMount <boolean>
This optional key causes the job to be started every time a filesystem is mounted.

This is how Time Machine does it (see /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-attach.plist).

You need to check if the desired /Volume/... is available, but in my experience, it's faster than using Folder Actions.

answered May 8, 2011 at 13:26

Daniel Beck

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Here's is an interesting link about launchd approach: macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=32534
– Somebody still uses you MS-DOS
Commented Oct 10, 2011 at 6:27

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Rinzwind · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-05 21:40:08Z

0

A similar question has been posted in the MacRumors forum here:

The specific suggestion there is to use the application MarcoPolo.

answered Jan 5, 2011 at 21:40

Rinzwind

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3 Answers 3