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Mac 101: How to manually enable menu extras

More Mac 101, our tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

For some reason, I tend to come across times when my optical drive doesn't want to eject the CD or DVD that's in it. I found myself having to restart the computer and try again... in more serious instances, I have to restart and force-eject the disc by holding down the mouse button during the boot process.

At some point I thought to myself, "There's gotta be a better way to do this." Having to restart my computer when a disc doesn't want to eject is not exactly user-friendly. After pondering the possibilities for quite some time, I remembered that you could enable some menu extras (including an eject button) from the CoreServices folder.

Go to the root of your hard drive, either by choosing "Computer" from the Go menu or by clicking it in the sidebar of a Finder window (my hard drive is the icon labeled 'Server' in the screenshot), and follow this path:

System > Library > CoreServices > Menu Extras

Once in that folder, you'll see a lot of different extras that you can put into your menu bar. Just double-click the ones that look appealing to you and they will appear in your menu bar. Go ahead and give them a try. If you decide that you don't want something in the menu bar, just hold down the command key and drag it off the bar.

The eject button doesn't always fix a stuck CD, but it's one more option to try before restarting my computer.

More Mac 101, our tips and tricks for novice Mac users. For some reason, I tend to come across times when my optical drive doesn't want...
 

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mrman470

Hey, I'm on Snow Leopard (10.6.1 to be exact) and when i double click on one of these i get the error: The document “Script Menu.menu” could not be opened. SystemUIServer cannot open files in the “MenuExtra plugin” format.

it does the same for all the menu plugins.

Please help,
Mr. Man

January 04 2010 at 2:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mike K.

If one does install the eject menu extra via the means described in this article, then decides it's not really needed, how would one go about removing that extra from the menu bar?

December 29 2009 at 12:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
geekmorgan

Anyone else see a "Verizon.menu" item in this folder? What's that about? I'm on a Mac Pro at work...

November 03 2009 at 10:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
turboladen

Doesn't work for me on 10.6.1 (upgraded from 10.5.7)--I get "The document 'Displays.menu' could not be opened. SystemUIServer cannot open files in the 'MenuExtra plugin' format."

Not much help from google either. Bummer.

November 03 2009 at 2:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lipflip+tuaw.com

If your CD or DVD is physically stuck then this tip might save you having your Mac repaired:
http://lipflip.org/blog/lipflip/2008/03/removing-a-stuck-cddvd-from-a-macbook

It's tested for MacBook's and MBP's but might also work on iMacs.

November 02 2009 at 2:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Khalil Amar

Hey, you know when you open Keychain from the Utilities Folder.
in the Preferences, you can check "Show Status in the menu bar".
It adds a lock, so that you can lock your Mac before being away from keyboard for a meeting.

what is the shortcut or applescript that adds this lock automatically from Apple Remote Desktop?

November 02 2009 at 11:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Stephen.4

You should probably include that you can hold the command key, then drag all Apple menu bar items out of the menu bar.

November 02 2009 at 10:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Stephen.4's comment
Justin H

Thank you! Haha I was searching through the comments hoping to find how to remove them.

November 02 2009 at 4:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
wvarela

Using the Terminal There are two commands that can be used in the Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities) which can be used to force disk ejection:
The first command to try is drutil tray eject. Simply type in this command and press return.
The other method takes a little more work but can work in instances where the first method fails.
Type the command drutil list into the Terminal and press return . This will provide a list of all currently connected removable devices. [ScreenShot 1-DiskEject] -- connect FireWire/USB drives for this
Use the command drutil tray eject 1
In the above command, the number "1" should be replaced with whatever drive number you obtained in the first step.

November 02 2009 at 10:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brian

You could just unfold a paperclip and push that little button on the inside of the slot loading drive that will spit the disc out. On the tray drives it's easier to find because it's an obvious hole but it should be there. I haven't found a drive that doesn't have it.

November 02 2009 at 9:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
marc

hmm. when i double click in 10.5.8, nothing happens. when i go to "customize toolbar" i only see a 13 options (vs. the 26 options i see in the folder). sup w/ that?

November 02 2009 at 8:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to marc's comment
BuddyBoy

The tool bar is the top of the open finder window. This is for the menu bar, at the very top of the screen.

November 02 2009 at 10:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
marc

doh! buddyboy, thanks.

November 02 2009 at 10:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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