Help getting time machine to back up a connected external HD

I have an external hard drive (in addition to the external drive used for Time Machine) connected to my MacBook Pro and Time machine will not let me remove it from the "excluded" list, it is shown on the list, greyed out and can not be selected to removed from the list. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Oct 20, 2021 5:45 AM

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Posted on Oct 20, 2021 6:16 AM

Time Machine can't back up volumes in some formats, such as FAT32. Copy the data off and reformat it, or use a different backup method.


Copies moved to the internal drive will be backed up unless excluded.


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Oct 20, 2021 11:34 AM in response to Niel

Thank you very much for the feedback, I had the wrong understanding that exFAT was cross compatible (or maybe it is but just Time Machine doesn't like it). Once I reformatted to APFS I'm now able to remove it from the Time Machine exclusion list. Thanks again for the help!

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Help getting time machine to back up a connected external HD

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