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I just bought a new WD elements to use as a second Time Machine backup drive. The drive appears in finder but when I try to add it as a Time Machine backup drive by clicking the "+" button, it does not appear (instead, only the drive I am using as an external storage drive, not a backup, appears). What do I do?
Mac mini (M2, 2023)
What do I do?
Check to see how the drive is formatted. As of now, it is likely formatted for both PC and Mac. That won't work for Time Machine.
Connect the drive directly to your Mac. Right-Click on the drive icon and select Get Info. Look for Format in the new window that appears.
The drive needs to be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for use with Time Machine. Time Machine might later adjust things automatically, but you don't need to be concerned with this.
If the drive is not formatted this way, use Disk Utility on your Mac to format the drive correctly. Then....it will appear as an option to select as a destination drive for Time Machine backups.
Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on MacAppleOfficial Apple Support › guide › disk-utility › mac
What do I do?
Check to see how the drive is formatted. As of now, it is likely formatted for both PC and Mac. That won't work for Time Machine.
Connect the drive directly to your Mac. Right-Click on the drive icon and select Get Info. Look for Format in the new window that appears.
The drive needs to be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for use with Time Machine. Time Machine might later adjust things automatically, but you don't need to be concerned with this.
If the drive is not formatted this way, use Disk Utility on your Mac to format the drive correctly. Then....it will appear as an option to select as a destination drive for Time Machine backups.
Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on MacAppleOfficial Apple Support › guide › disk-utility › mac
Finder will recognize more formats than Time Machine.
If you look closely at the documentation for the hard drive, you will see that it likely reads something like "works for Mac and PC".
After the first backup is done, if you are curious, you can find out exactly how the drive was formatted for Time Machine. It might be either Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS (Case Sensitive) depending on the operating system that is installed on the Mac.
If you find that the drive has been formatted in APFS, this was done automatically by Time Machine before the first backup began.
Thanks. Had to reformat in disk utility (it was supposed to already be properly formatted for mac). I got confused because finder recognized the disk but TM didn’t.
What if Time Machine does not recognize my drive?
