Helpful Tip: Show Connected Drives & Devices in Mac OS X Dock
Mac only 
One of the things that I found interesting when getting used to my Mac was that Apple didn’t include a way to quickly access the connected drives from the Dock. Sure they place the shortcuts on the desktop for everything that’s connected, but navigating to the Dock is much faster in my opinion.
I didn’t think adding any connected drives and devices to the Dock would be too difficult since you can already add any folder, which will then create a stack. After a little searching I came across an easy solution on the MacRumors forum:
- Open Finder and press Shift+Command+G
- Type /Volumes into the window that appears, and press Go
- The Finder window should now display a hidden folder called Volumes located at the root of your hard drive, and in it are shortcuts to all of the connected drives/devices
- Drag the Volumes folder onto your Dock to create a stack from it (switch to column view in Finder if you don’t see the Volumes folder)
Whenever you click on the newly created stack it will pop-out with any DVD’s, USB drives, cameras, and external drives that might be connected to your computer. Pretty cool, huh?
This is just one of the many helpful tips that we have done. You can find more of them by visiting our Helpful Tips category, or by subscribing to our Helpful Tips feed. We also have a full feed available if you want to receive all of our articles in your reader!
Tags: Helpful Tips, Software, How To, Mac
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Awwwww, another Mac only? *Looks at all the Mac items in Cybernet’s feed*
*starting to feel left out - hint hint*
Is Cybernet gonna be Mac only soon?
I have been thinking the same thing Michael. I sure hope not…
Yea, i hope you guys dont turn into a Mac only site.
I’m a little surprised that you guys are even thinking that. Of course we’re going to provide Mac tips as we come across them, but a majority of our articles are still Windows-only. Heck, the CyberNotes from today is Windows-only as are the ones for tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday. Just because we throw some Mac tips in here and there doesn’t mean we’re ditching Windows.
Did someone in the Ryan household get a Mac?!?!
Maybe I’m stupid, but I can’t get how to do the Volumes one. I do the trick to look at the folder, but once I do, I’m looking IN the folder, not AT it. I don’t have anything I can drag down to the dock. Am I missing something?
At the top of the finder window (after you’ve done that search), you’ll see a small icon indicating where you are. You can drag that one to the dock, then set it up however you want it to act just like the others.
You can follow Dakine’s tip, or switch to column mode to see the Volumes folder. I’ll edit the article to reflect that… thanks!
Okay - so I have accomplished this task. However, the drives still show up out there on the desktop taking up screen real estate.
How do I get them off the desktop without “ejecting” them? Because if I eject them, then they no longer show up in the stack I just created.
Thanks!!
Open up Finder, go to Preferences, and on the General tab you can uncheck the drives you don’t want to show on the desktop.
Awesome Ryan - thanks for the tip.