DiskMan

Terminal UI for disk management on Linux and macOS: inspect physical drives, partitions, and volumes; mount/unmount; format with strong safety checks.

Location: ~/Applications/DiskMan (or clone from git)

Features

• Device inventory
  • Linux: lsblk (+ /proc/mounts, /proc/swaps)
  • macOS: diskutil list/info (plist)
• Mount / unmount
  • Linux: udisksctl
  • macOS: diskutil mount / diskutil unmount
• Format with hard safety checks and type-to-confirm
  • Linux: wipefs + mkfs.* (ext4, xfs, btrfs, f2fs, vfat, exfat when tools exist)
  • macOS: diskutil eraseVolume / eraseDisk (APFS, JHFS+, ExFAT, MS-DOS FAT32, Free Space)

Requirements

	Linux	macOS
OS tools	lsblk, udisksctl, wipefs, desired mkfs.*	diskutil (built-in)
Python	3.11+	3.11+
Privilege	sudo -n and/or pkexec	sudo -n and/or macOS admin dialog (osascript)

Windows is not supported yet (backend stub returns a clear error).

Run

./run.sh
# or
./run.sh --list
./run.sh --version

Optional PATH shortcut:

ln -sf /path/to/DiskMan/run.sh ~/.local/bin/diskman
diskman

run.sh creates a local .venv and installs Textual on first run if needed.

macOS notes

• Use Terminal, iTerm2, or Ghostty (mouse right-click works in most modern emulators).
• System volumes (Macintosh HD, Preboot, Recovery, VM, anything under /System) are blocked from format/unmount.
• Prefer testing format on a disposable USB stick.
• If elevation is needed, approve the macOS password dialog, or run sudo -v in another terminal first.

Linux notes

• Install udisks2 for mount/unmount without root in many desktop setups.
• Format elevation uses non-interactive sudo -n or a polkit (pkexec) dialog so the TUI is not corrupted by a password prompt on stdin.

Keyboard & mouse

Input	Action
↑ / ↓	Navigate device tree
r	Refresh
m	Mount selected
u	Unmount selected
f	Format wizard
Right-click	Context menu (Mount / Unmount / Format / Refresh)
q	Quit

Safety

Formatting is destructive. DiskMan will refuse to format:

• Devices mounted at protected paths (/, /boot, /System, /Users, …)
• Active swap / macOS VM volumes
• Virtual devices (zram, loop, …)
• macOS system volume labels (Macintosh HD, Preboot, Recovery, …)
• Whole disks when a child partition/volume is mounted or protected

When format is allowed, you must type the exact device basename (e.g. sda2 or disk4s1) before the Format button enables.

Privilege elevation uses non-interactive methods only so the TUI keeps the terminal:

1. Try the operation as the current user (often enough on macOS for USB media)
2. sudo -n (cached credentials — run sudo -v elsewhere if needed)
3. Desktop dialog: pkexec (Linux) or osascript administrator privileges (macOS)

Project layout

DiskMan/
├── run.sh
├── requirements.txt
├── README.md
└── src/diskman/
    ├── app.py              # Textual app
    ├── discover.py         # inventory facade
    ├── actions.py          # mount/unmount/format facade
    ├── safety.py           # mount/format policy (cross-platform)
    ├── platform.py         # OS detection
    ├── models.py
    ├── backends/
    │   ├── linux.py        # lsblk / udisksctl / wipefs+mkfs
    │   ├── darwin.py       # diskutil
    │   └── unsupported.py
    └── ui/                 # detail pane, format modal, context menu

Out of scope (v1)

Partition create/delete/resize, LVM/RAID, SMART dashboards, Windows backend, NTFS format on Linux (mkfs.ntfs not required).