Time Machine keeps excluding external drives

I have this question too.

This has recently started happening with my backups as well. It used to work fine. Not sure when it stopped working, but I have noticed that one of my external drives keeps getting excluded. I try to remove it from the list of excluded drives and it doesn't save the change.

So almost a year has gone by and no one has an answer for this? I have ticked the "I have this question too" box, but in the interests of raising awareness, I have done exactly the same things as the original poster, I cant get it to be included by Time Machine. When I hit save, then let the backup run through, I can then enter Time Machine and see that it hasnt been included in the backup because the drive has no history.

I'm using a 2011 Macbook Air, and therefore, I aint got much disk space! So I need this solution to be available to me in order to carry on using this machine as my main machine. I store my music library on an external USB drive, and thats what I would like to have backed up.

UPDATE: my USB 128GB Hard Drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatted.

I just bought a Kingston HyperX 128GB USB drive after researching and finding that it should be possible to keep it backed up with Time Machine. I am however experiencing exactly the same issue describe here, very disappointing. I have also formatted the disk as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Just found this thread (and quite a few others) about this issue. Not sure what is going on.

There is something on (some) external drives that is causing Time Machine to only allow it in the exclude list. Even after removing and saving, Time Machine reverts to excluding the external drive.

I also am having this problem with my Micro Sd card that I keep permanently in the SDXC card slot. I use it to store my iTunes and iPhoto libraries. So it is a priority for me to find a solution also.

I too am having this problem with 2 seperate external drives. C'mon Apple, help us out here.

I just found another conversation in 2008 about this same problem in the Apple Support Community.

My external disk being automatically excluded from Time Machine backups was originally formatted on a PC so the 2008 solution may be appropriate.

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shekel

Formating using MacOs Extended (Journal) works for my USB disk

I have 2 Mac - one with 10.9 and another with 10.10. Both do not allow remove my USB disk from exclude backup list if it was formatted as FAT. After reformatting as MacOS Extended Journal, this issue is resolved. So this issue should occur in all versions.

I have the exact same problem but i am running 10.11.1 on macbook pro with hd drive formatted as extended journal. the drive has worked before. i am using several different drives and it seems like the problem is slowly getting worse. i have tried reformatting drive and changing name and it just ends up excluding drive from time machine backups. P[lease help. 10.10 did not solve anything.

I'm also having this problem with 10.11.3. I have all my external drives on the exclude list and they are still backed up. Come on Apple, fix this!