lifsaver addresses a bug on macOS Live Item File System (LIFS) which prevents multiple cards from mounting when they have the same name (e.g. Untitled or NO NAME). It watches for cards that appear but never mount, and lets you mount them in two clicks.
On modern macOS, external cards mount through the Live Item File System (LIFS), the userspace layer of Apple's LiveFS framework, which handles these volumes via user-space extensions (livefiles_exfat, livefiles_msdos) instead of kernel extensions. When two cards carry the same label (e.g. factory default Untitled) macOS is supposed to disambiguate them with a numeric suffix (e.g. /Volumes/Untitled 1). In practice, on the LIFS path this disambiguation often fails: diskarbitrationd probes the volume, begins the mount, then aborts with unable to mount … (status code 0x00000204). The card gets a device node but never finishes mounting – no error dialog, it just doesn't appear in Finder.
lifsaver watches for exactly this: a card that appears but stalls before mounting. If macOS is mid consistency-check (fsck) it holds off rather than race the repair; otherwise, it tries diskutil mount and then the raw /sbin/mount_exfat and /sbin/mount_msdos binaries (this requires admin privileges).
Download the latest installer. Or simply:
brew install --cask lucuma13/dit/lifsaver
The installer is not notarized – macOS will warn on first open: right-click the .pkg → Open, or allow it under System Settings → Privacy & Security.
If the app misses a stalled card or fails to mount it, please send a diagnostic report: choose Send Diagnostic Report from the menu, optionally describe what happened, save the file, then click Email Report and send it to me (or open a GitHub issue).
lifsaver deliberately circumvents standard macOS Disk Arbitration and LiveFS protections to force-mount stalled volumes. The author assumes no liability for lost or corrupted data, or hardware failures of any kind. This app is not affiliated with Apple, and you use it at your own risk.