Safely Remove USB Flash Drive on Windows PC

If you have a USB flash drive plugged into your Windows 10 PC and would like to safely eject it, locate the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon (which looks like a USB plug, see photo below) in your taskbar notifications area. This icon is in the lower-right corner of your screen.

 

 

Can’t Find USB Removal Icon

If you can’t see it, click the carat-shaped up arrow to see any hidden icons.

 

 

Safely Remove Hardware

Once the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon has been revealed, right mouse click on it. A menu will pop up, then locate the name of the drive to remove; It will have the word “Eject” in front of it. Click on it.

 

 

Once the drive is safe to remove, Windows will alert you with a notification pop-up titled “Safe To Remove Hardware“. After which it would be safe to unplug the drive from your PC. If you instead receive an error you can simply power off your PC and remove the USB flash drive. Alternatively you can reboot your PC and try safely ejecting the USB flash drive again.

 

 

If you constantly skip safely removing your USB flash device you run the risk of corrupting the stored data. Take the extra few seconds to protect your data by safely removing all USB flash devices.

 

Conclusion

As always, I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions on my article on how to safely remove USB flash drives on a Windows PC.

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