How do I Eject USB Storage in iPadOS 13

I happily saw that I can use external USB storage with my iPad Pro (2018 3rd Gen) using iPadOS 13 either directly from a drive with USB-C or a Flash Drive using the Apple USB-C-to-USB adapter. So far so good.

But how do you unmount the external USB storage from the iPad?!?!?


I thought: surely there must be a way to unmount the USB storage. It's counter-intuitive to just unplug a device without first unmounting it in any OS. I looked (and looked some more) in System Preferences and in Files but still thought: I'm missing something here... Nope: Apple's guidance is just to unplug the USB device.

As of this writing (20191211) you just unplug it. I'd qualify that advice with the further suggestion to check the device's light to see it's not doing anything before ripping it out.

Figured there would be countless others thinking "Surely there must be a way to properly remove USB devices from my iPad...". Short answer: nope.