Cannot format external HD to HFS+ (encrypted) for Time Machine

Does diskutil have a format option for HFS+ (encrypted)?

No. CoreStorage, the requirement for HFS encryption, does not exist in Monterey. It can still use a CoreStorage volume, but it cannot create one.

You would need to use an older OS to create an encrypted HFS+ drive.

BlueberryLover wrote:

Not according to File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac:

Good luck with trusting that Apple keeps its documentation up to date.

You should man diskutil and look for the section on CoreStorage. Here's the first line which doesn't give much hope for the encryption of HFS+ disks.

 coreStorage | cs coreStorageVerb [...]

                CoreStorage verbs can be used to gather information about, and to remove, CoreStorage volumes.

If you look at an older version of macOS, corestorage has createvolume and encryptvolume. Those, among many others, are missing from the Monterey version.

This confirmed that encrypted HFS+ is not available in Disk Utility in Monterey

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-os-extended-journaled-encrypted.2298265/

If you create a new disk for Time Machine in Monterey the ™ will automatically format it in APFS, case sensitive. You can encrypt it if you want.

Using Terminal the following commands seem to be available:

Diskutil eraseDisk

Usage: diskutil eraseDisk format name [APM[Format]|MBR[Format]|GPT[Format]]

    MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode

(Re)-partition a whole disk (create a new partition map). This completely

erases any existing data on the given whole disk; all volumes on this disk

will be destroyed. Format is the specific file system name you want to erase it

as (HFS+, etc.). Name is the (new) volume name (subject to file system naming

restrictions), or can be specified as %noformat% to skip initialization

(newfs). You cannot erase the boot disk.

Ownership of the affected disk is required.

Example: diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ UntitledUFS disk3

The diskutil man page includes this statement "Starting with macOS 11.0, certain Core Storage manipulation verbs have been removed."

Below is the list of CoreStorage verbs (extracted from Terminal).

Usage:  diskutil [quiet] coreStorage|CS <verb> <options>

        where <verb> is as follows:

     list            (Show status of CoreStorage volumes)

     info[rmation]   (Get CoreStorage information by UUID or disk)

     delete          (Delete a CoreStorage logical volume group)

     unlockVolume    (Attach/mount a locked CoreStorage logical volume)

All of our TM drives were formatted APFS (Case sensitive) for 5 Monterey installations. However, I've moved from TM to Carbon Copy Cloner v6 Standard Clone for all. Standard CCC is every bit as compatible with Monterey as TM and Setup/Migration Assistants use them flawlessly. CCC is so much more versatile and far faster than TM.

The HFS+ Time Machine backup drive I brought over from the Catalina installation was started in July 2020 (shortly after the Mac was purchased) under Catalina and in the Time Machine interface that (July 2020) is where the backup sets start from. Also in the Finder, the oldest backup is shown as July 2020. To restore a file or files I can either copy them via the Finder or enter the Time Machine interface from the drop down menu.

On your Mac, what happened around June 2021? Can you look in About This Mac at the Software Installations log and see what might have been installed then? MacOS, something else? Did you change any user accounts around then, user account names, privileges ...? Did you interrupt a Time Machine backup sometime around then? When I went from Catalina to Monterey, the next Time Machine backup on the still HFS+ backup disk took over an hour for "preparing" -- the formats were majorly changed in Monterey and that first next backup takes a long time ... did this happen to you and might you have interrupted or cancelled that backup? Or did you do anything to the backup drive somewhere along the way?

Copying from one Time Machine disk to a new one often does not work because the intricate file structures and file links are handled differently within Monterey versus earlier MacOS versions, and the sheer complexity makes the copy take agonizingly long (days or even weeks have been reported) or it fails with an error. It is usually best to keep the old drive as an archive and start a new one with the format that works best with Monterey (APFS or APFS encrypted, e.g.).

One thing you can try is run Disk Utility on the backup drive, but that might take days (or longer). Another thing to try: hold down the option key and click on the Time Machine clock symbol in the menu bar, you should see an option to "browse other backup disks," does that help you see older backups? Or turn off automatic backups, then try the option key approach.

Something that is not clear in your post. Do you want the external drive to be encrypted or just the TM backup on that drive to be encrypted?

What version of macOS was used when the TM backup that you want to transfer to this drive was created?

Regardless, you may find the following article enlightening:

• APFS changes in Big Sur: how Time Machine backs up to APFS, and more - The Eclectic Light Company << note that i still applies to macOS Monterey

Yes, that is what I mean, store existing ™ disk and start a ™ backup on a new disk.

Other users have posted here with similar problem and solution was to store old o disk and start a new disk.

KaiNLee wrote:

OK. So what I think you are proposing is that I start a new TM hard drive and keep the existing one as an archive. Then, if I want to retrieve a version from the archived drive, I mount the old drive and run TM with it. Is that what you mean? This had not occurred to me, and it may be workable though cumbersome. But I'm wanting to make sure I understand what you're suggesting.

KaiNLee wrote:

OK, everyone. Very enlightening, though also dispiriting. Here's what I understand.

In the transition to Big Sur (OS 12) the ability to use Time Machine to restore earlier versions of files from HFS+ format Time Machine drives was lost. In addition, the ability to format external drives in HFS+ (encrypted) format was also lost.

Neither of these changes was announced by Apple.

Going forward, I can save my old TM drives (HFS+) and use Finder to dig out specific older versions of files if I need them.

But what I really need to do is to start new TM backups in AFPS format drives.

If others agree with this, I am irritated that I was not told but I know what to do.

But if I'm wrong on any of this, please correct me. Thanks, in any event, for helping me to learn.

That's not correct. My Macbook Pro was on Catalina 10.15.7 and it was recently (December 2021) upgraded to Monterey 12.2.

I had two Time Machine drives I was using under Catalina, both were HFS+ as required for Catalina. After upgrading to Monterey, I kept using one of the original HFS+ Time Machine backup drives, keeping all the backup history, and reformatted the second one as APFS and started a new set of backups on that APFS drive. This was in December 2021. Under Monterey I just restored a file from November 2020 from the HFS+ Time Machine drive, that backup had been made under Catalina and again, it's on an HFS+ Time Machine backup drive.

So this statement is incorrect: "In the transition to Big Sur (OS 12) the ability to use Time Machine to restore earlier versions of files from HFS+ format Time Machine drives was lost."

As I just did this successfully.

You might also want to have a look at Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac

and File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac

Time Machine still supports backups on Mac OS Extended format (Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), and Xsan formatted disks.