If an external drive is not mounted yet but has it's visible light on is it safe to just unplug it from a usb hub without clicking anything?
 

If an external drive or a usb stick is not mounted yet but has it's visible light on is it safe to just to unplug it from a usb hub without clicking mount on the gui? At the bottom far lower right of my kde screen it says 'mount', but if I've changed my mind and want to just unplug it, is it safe to do so, instead of having to click mount then unmount.

It's connected to an unpowered usb hub i.e. gets it power from my computer. Thanks in advance.

lsblk again. Does the ‘puter know it’s there? Is it mounted? Then don’t unplug it.

Part of the sales pitch for usb was it could be unplugged at anytime.

To build on what jefro said, the reason for "safely remove" is to ensure that no files get damaged by a premature removal, say, if for example, a transfer or modification is taking place.

If the drive is not mounted, it doesn't need to unmounted; it can just be unplugged.

If its been plugged in but not mounted, yes, you can unplug it - but if it has been mounted, first make sure it is unmounted, which will write anything that may be in a write cache to disk first, otherwise you stand a chance of corrupting the file system on it.

Regardless of the operating system, always unmount an external drive before removing it, and wait for the process to complete. You simply cannot know what the system hasn't done yet.

As others have said, if it's currently unmounted it should be perfectly safe to just unplug it.

I don't know how KDE does things, but in my file browser any device plugged in, mounted or not, appears in a side panel. If I right-click on the icon, one option is "safely remove" and it confirms that it is safe — the "belt and braces" approach.

In my case it hasn't been even mounted yet. I've plugged the external drive in and haven't mounted it yet and want to unplugg it as is. I see a light on the external drive.

For me to see the "safely remove" I would need to click mount first, then click "safely remove"

Unplug even if the light is lit on the external hdd and it's not mounted yet?

I think what everyone is saying is very simple.

If you verify it is not mounted then unplug it.
If you cannot readily verify it is not mounted then do not unplug it until you have done the steps to unmount it.

The idea is to protect your data on the device and only by verifying it is not mounted can you be 100% certain the data is safe.
The light does not tell you it is or is not mounted. On most pen drives it indicates power is available and may also blink to indicate activity.

Easy enough to tell with:
Check and recheck an external NTFS volumn. Or you'll be looking for a windows machine.

"The light" on an external drive usually indicates only that power has been supplied. It then "blinks" (maybe ...(!)) when the drive is being accessed.