Where is the standard Time Machine exclusion list in Big Sur?

Question

Created Nov ’20

Replies 2

Boosts 0

Views 2.9k

Participants 4

Before Big Sur, there was a property list at

/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist

that contained a list of all of the standard files/locations that Time Machine would exclude from a backup.

That file seems to have disappeared and I have been unable to find an equivalent.

Furthermore, the tmutil isexcluded (i.e. NSURLIsExcludedFromBackupKey/CSBackupIsItemExcluded) does not reliably report these locations as excluded.

So is there still a publicly accessible way of discovering the standard locations excluded by Time Machine?

Boost

Answer 1

daniyars OP

Jul ’21

It seems that it's now placed right in the directory of the backup on a time machine volume e.g.

/Volumes/Time machine/2021-07-04-040007.inprogress/.exclusions.plist

0

Answer 2

GregE2 OP

Aug ’22

As reported above, on Monterey 12.5 I am seeing a copy within each backup. Eg ..

/Volumes/.timemachine/NNNNNNN-414B-47C7-A804-NNNNNNNNN/2022-08-11-094049.backup/2022-08-11-094049.backup/.exclusions.plist

(The N's are obscuring my UUID on this post just to be safe).

Looks like a comprehensive list of standard system exclusions - lots of caches, backups, transient looking stuff.

Hope that helps someone, ciao.

0