Can't Eject Time Machine External Backup Drive from MacBook Pro

mtlm__ wrote:

I always have to Force Eject my Time Machine Backup Disk because I receive this message "The disk cannot be ejected because one or more program may be using it".

I have a MacBook Pro 2021. This is a recent issue - maybe after the OS Tahoe 26 update?

I have tried reformatting the disk. I have selected Manual Backup, not Automatic, for Time Machine, and I only try to eject it after I know the backup is completed.

I have seen some users suggest excluding the drive from Spotlight indexing, however it won't let me because it is designated as my Time Machine Backup Drive.

I have tried quitting the mds_stores processes in Activity Monitor but that hasn't fixed it either.

This is frustrating to always select Force Eject, and I worry that the backup drive or some files will eventually be corrupted. How can this be resolved?

Have you run Disk Utility First Aid on that drive....?

Disk Utility.app>View>Show All Devices and run the First Aid.

— Time Machine troubleshooting on Mac - Apple Support

—Prevent Spotlight searches in specific folders or disks on Mac - Apple Support

—Exclude files from a Time Machine backup on Mac - Apple Support

No insight—

Time Machine activity from log, extracts Time Machine activity logged during the previous 1 hour...and see what is the hangup from the Terminal.app copy and paste:

printf '\e[3J' && log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 1h | grep -F 'eMac' | grep -Fv 'etat' | awk -F']' '{print substr($0,1,19), $NF}'  

Since your computer’s Time Machine Backup is experiencing an issue, you’ve already tried troubleshooting by scheduling a manual backup. 

Consider a 1-month free trial of https://bombich.com    

How to schedule a backup  and   How to schedule a backup

SafetyNet snapshots vs. Backup snapshots

In regards to “ Can't Eject Time Machine External Backup Drive “

Why can't I eject the destination volume after the backup task has completed?

They ( CCC ) do offer excellent customer service when help is needed 

I’ve been using this software since macOS 10.13 High Sierra to augment what TM Backup does