Eject may refer to any of the following:

  1. With removable disk drives, eject means to disengage the medium (removable disk), so it may be removed. For instance, with a CD-ROM drive, ejecting the disk opens the tray. Or, if the CD-ROM drive uses slot insertion, ejecting will mechanically reposition the CD, so it sticks out of the slot.

The picture is a close-up example of an eject button and icon on the front of a CD-ROM drive. It’s usually represented by a triangle with a line underneath and on the drive’s right side.

Eject CD or DVD through the operating system

Operating systems like Windows and macOS allow users to eject a CD or DVD using a built-in software eject option. If the eject button on the disc drive is not working, the software eject option lets you remove a CD or DVD from the drive.

Windows computer

You can eject a CD or DVD on a Windows computer through File Explorer.

  • Windows computer

  • macOS computer

  • Linux computer

  • Open File Explorer.

  • In the left navigation pane, click This PC.

  • On the right side of File Explorer, right-click the CD or DVD drive and select Eject in the pop-up menu.

macOS computer

You can eject a disc from the desktop or through Finder on a Mac computer.

  • On the macOS desktop, find and click the disc drive icon.
  • In the menu bar at the top of the desktop, click File and select Eject.

OR

  • Open Finder.
  • In the left sidebar, find the disc drive.
  • Click the eject icon next to the disc drive name.

Linux computer

You can eject a disc from the command line on a Linux computer.

  • If using a Linux OS with a GUI, open the terminal or command-line shell interface.
  • At the command line, type eject and press Enter.

How to create an eject symbol in HTML

To create the eject symbol (⏏) in HTML, use the special HTML character code ⏏ in your HTML code.

To close the disc drive tray, at the command line, type eject -t.

  • Extended special HTML characters and codes.
  1. With USB drives, eject is an operating system feature that lets the operating system know the drive is about to be disconnected. The operating system completes any read or write operations on the drive and unmounts it from the computer.
  • Why does the CD-ROM, DVD, or other disc drive tray not open?
  • CD-ROM help and support.

If you do not eject a USB drive before it’s disconnected, there’s a chance that data on the drive can be corrupted. For this reason, it’s best to always eject your USB drive before physically disconnecting it from the USB port.

  1. With floppy disk drives, eject is the action of disengaging and removing a floppy diskette from the drive. To eject a floppy diskette from a floppy disk drive, press the eject button on the front of the drive. The diskette is ejected part way, allowing you to grab it and carefully pull it out the rest of the way.
  • How to eject a USB flash drive from a computer.

The picture is an example of the eject button on a 3 1/2" floppy disk drive.

  1. With Linux and Unix, eject is a command to eject removable media using the command line. See our eject command page for further information about this command.

CD terms, Hardware terms, Unmount