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Time Machine

Time Machine not backing up my external Hard Drive. I've tried to take it off the excluded list but the minus button will not operate at all. Please let me know if you have any solutions. I'm on a Mac Studio running Ventura 13.1

Posted on Jan 3, 2023 9:59 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 3, 2023 12:16 PM

If you cannot remove the hard drive from the list of Excluded items, then it is not formatted correctly to work with Time Machine. The drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or possibly APFS.


Temporarily, connect the hard drive directly to your Mac so that the drive mounts on the Mac's desktop

Right-Click on the drive icon and then select Get Info from the drop down list

Look for Format in the information that is displayed about the drive


What is the current Format?

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 3, 2023 12:16 PM in response to familymanathome

If you cannot remove the hard drive from the list of Excluded items, then it is not formatted correctly to work with Time Machine. The drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or possibly APFS.


Temporarily, connect the hard drive directly to your Mac so that the drive mounts on the Mac's desktop

Right-Click on the drive icon and then select Get Info from the drop down list

Look for Format in the information that is displayed about the drive


What is the current Format?

Time Machine

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