Time Machine Backup Taking days

Time machine already knows not to back ANY drive that it can tell is a backup drive. If you tell it to NOT back up the backup drive, it will remove that from the exclude list, because it is already excluded, automatically.

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If you hold the Option key while you click on the Time Machine Icon in the menubar, a new option appears,

"verify backups". If you decide to verify, It will take all afternoon or overnight to verify.

Remember that you can add an ADDITIONAL backup drive at any time, and it will start a new, stand-alone backup set on the new drive, and every-other backup goes to every-other drive, as long as all stay available. any drive can be removed at any time.

Cypressar wrote:

I've been using my time capsule to backup my MacBook and my external HDD. Everything has backed up well so far, however in the past couple days I'm finding that my latest backup has been taking days to backup and I don't know why? I've tried ensuring that it doesn't back up anything that it shouldn't however I've tried to ensure it's not selecting my time capsule to 'backup'. So I've selected that drive as an exclusion. however I've also noticed that when I do that and I Restart my Mac, it isn't showing the exclusion anymore. Is there something I'm missing?

Maybe the Time Capsule is operating in a state of failure ... It is getting old, no(?)

TimeCapsule

Release date: February 29, 2008 — Discontinued April 26, 2018

Try a different drive and compare your results:

Back up your Mac Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

If you value your user data

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.

Halt the process and start over. If it continues, I suggest you get an appropriately sized HDD and recreate the TM backup.

HDDs are cheap and plentiful; you can retain the Time Capsule for future reference assuming it's not failing, but the immediate need is to protect your data.

Or you can try reformatting the Time Capsule.