Creating Desktop Icons and Disconnecting

Create Desktop icons for automounts

Because an automounted connection to an NFS server is intentionally not visualized on the Desktop or in the sidebar of the Finder, there is no possibility other than the icon of the mount point folder to let the Finder present the mount as a disk volume.

But if you attach importance to have automounts displayed like a manually administered network volume, you can have NFS Manager create a Desktop icon for you.

Perform the following steps to create a Desktop icon for an automount:

1. Use any application which is showing disk contents (e.g. the Finder) to click on the mount point of the automount. macOS will establish the connection.
2. In the control window of NFS Manager, select the configuration topic NFS Client > Active Mounts in the overview column.
3. Select the mount in the table.
4. Click the button Create Desktop icon… below the table.
5. Enter the desired name for the new icon.

The icon will be created in your Desktop folder and will hereby become visible “on” your Desktop. A click on the icon will trigger the automount. A double-click will open the respective Finder window.

IMPORTANT: The icon is a link (alias) to the mount point. It is not a “real” icon of a volume. If you drag the icon into the Trash, it will be removed, but the server will not be disconnected (“the network volume will not be ejected”). Automatic mounts are always disconnected automatically, never manually.

Disconnect a manual mount via the Finder

Perform the following steps to disconnect an NFS server to which the connection has been made manually via the Finder:

1. Select the icon of the affected network volume on the Desktop.
2. Select the menu item File > Eject “Name of the volume” or press the key combination ⌘ + E. You can also drag the icon onto the Trash in the Dock. The Trash will change into an eject icon.

Depending on permissions, disconnecting an NFS server via the Finder might not possible under all circumstances. In this case, use NFS Manager to disconnect the server.

Disconnect a manual mount via NFS Manager

Perform the following steps to disconnect an NFS server to which the connection has been made manually via NFS Manager:

1. Select the item NFS Client > Active Mounts in the overview of configuration topics at the left side of the control window.
2. Select the entry in the table Active NFS Mounts which should be disconnected.
3. Click on the button Unmount under the table. If necessary, macOS will ask for an administrator password.

If the folder which had been used as mount point is empty, NFS Manager will ask whether you like to delete it. You can answer Yes or No.