I'm backing up to Time Machine successfully, but the same drive is also listed in "Exclude from Backups."
The - is greyed out to remove "External." It's not yet a problem because the drive is backing up, but it still seems like it could fail because of the glitch.
I've tried to remove the drive, rename it, and add it again, but it always returns to "Exclude from Backups."
Exclude from Backups means the contents of that drive are NOT copied to the backup drive. This is correct for your situation -- you don't want to try to backup the contents of the backup drive to itself.
I think you (understandably) thought "Exclude from Backups" meant to not let the drive participate in backups in any way. Of course you want it to participate but Apple means "Exclude from Backups" to indicate to not try to back up that drive to itself.
Exclude from Backups means the contents of that drive are NOT copied to the backup drive. This is correct for your situation -- you don't want to try to backup the contents of the backup drive to itself.
I think you (understandably) thought "Exclude from Backups" meant to not let the drive participate in backups in any way. Of course you want it to participate but Apple means "Exclude from Backups" to indicate to not try to back up that drive to itself.
+1 Steve is spot on.
By default the Time Machine Backup is Excluded from backing up itself.
I have several Clone Backup Drives that are also Excluded from Time Machine Backups.
When I took the following screenshot, only one of my Clone Backup Drives is connect to my Mac.
Ah, makes sense! The drive wasn't listed at first so I thought the listing was a mistake. Thanks for the help.
Can't Remove Drive from Time Machine
