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Loops75 Author

Level 1

5 points

time machine backing up wrong drives

My time machine is backing up 2 external hard drives. However, it still seems to be backing up my 2 older ones (full now and no longer connected). How can it still attempt to back up external drives which are not even plugged in to the computer? One of the backup folders is empty and only has the drive name but the other has files on it. How can this be? Very confused and want to remove them from the backup so that timemachine is backing up the only 2 I need. I can not see them when I go to disc utility etc? Really baffled.

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 31, 2020 7:42 AM

Top-ranking reply

den.thed

Level 10

82,528 points

Posted on Mar 31, 2020 8:20 AM

If the external drive was connected in the past and backup by Time Machine, then those backups are part of your Time Machine backups. Plus it will only update those backups, if and when the external drive is reconnected.

If you want to Exclude that external drive from future backups? Connect the external drive to your Mac and add it to the "Exclude these items from backups" list. see > Exclude files from a Time Machine backup on Mac - Apple Support

For example:

I have 2 external Clone drives that are excluded from my Time Machine backups. I also have other external drives that are Excluded from Time Machine backups, but those are the only 2 non-TM drives that are currently connected to my Mac.

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time machine backing up wrong drives

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