10.5: Find out which program/process is locking a file
Mon, Nov 23 2009 at 7:30AM PST • Contributed by: boris42
Mon, Nov 23 2009 at 7:30AM PST • Contributed by: boris42
Sometimes the trash won't be emptied, or a volume refuses to eject with a "file in use error." There have been hints on how to find that out in Terminal with lsof, which is not necessarily for the faint of heart.
Here is a nice Automator workflow that runs some AppleScript and shell commands and can be used in contextual Finder menu. So when a file is reported used, control-click on it and run the Automator workflow and see who is to blame. It will use user process space (no prompt for admin password), but will also revert to system process space if needed (prompting for the password). It will display the application/process that is using the file, and the account that started the program (could be you, could be root, could be another local user).
Open Automator with empty workflow, then add following actions, in this order:
- Get Selected Finder Items
- Sort Finder Items (you can omit that, if you want)
- Run AppleScript
on run {input, parameters}
repeat with aFile in input
set theFile to quoted form of POSIX path of aFile
set cmd1 to "lsof -t " & theFile
try
set thePid to do shell script cmd1
on error number errorNumber
try
set thePid to ""
set thePid to do shell script cmd1 with administrator privileges
end try
end try
try
if thePid is "" then
set theMessage to theFile & " is not in use."
else
set cmd2 to "ps -o comm= -A " & thePid
set theProgram to do shell script cmd2
set cmd3 to "ps -o ruser= -A " & thePid
set theOwnerName to do shell script cmd3
set theMessage to theFile & " used by: " & thePid & " (" & theOwnerName & ")
" & theProgram
end if
end try
display dialog theMessage buttons {"OK"}
end repeat
return theMessage
end run[robg adds: I can't get this working on my 10.5 box, but it works fine for the author, so I'm running it under the assumption that I've done something to break it on my test machine. For me, the dialog appears empty, and Automator returns an error about not getting the selection from the Finder, even though I can display the value of the selected item within Automator.]
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