System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/TimeMachine: sudo mdutil -Ei off '/Volumes/TimeMachine' Secondly I tried stopping the indexing with the terminal by entering the following and got the also following result. Then I tried stopping spotlight from indexing them, first by adding the volume to settings->spotlight->privacy but it stated that I can't add a Volume that is used for Time Machine Backups. I tried force quitting them while the eject process was going on but that didn't help. I figured out that the processes 'mds' and 'mds_store' keep the hard drive from being ejected safely.

I tried completely removing the volume from TimeMachine and stopping automated backups but that didn't help. It always states that some program is still using it.

Now I have the problem that I can't eject this hard drive without shutting down the Mac. I'm running MacOS 12.1 on my 14' MacBook Pro and I currently use an external hard drive, that is connected to my dock as an TimeMachine Backup (so that it backups every hour or so while I'm working at my desk).

Time machine could not unmount disk