Problem: mds_stores interferes with my using Time Machine on WD My Passport for Mac

[Guest /u/Diligent-Length6139]

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EDIT: I actually solved this myself moments after posting but hopefully this helps someone else some day. So the description of the solution is below at the end of post. I have a new M4 Mac Mini runing OS 15.1.1 and trying to set up Time Machine back-ups on a new WD My Passport Ultra for Mac drive. But when I try to format the drive for Time Machine it tells me it can't unmount the drive because it's in use (it's not, not by me). And then I go to Disk Utility to unmount the drive and it tells me the same thing. So I try to use Disk Utility to Erase and reformat the drive and it gives me this saying what's using it is mds_stores. Google AI tells me "mds_stores" on a Mac refers to a background process that indexes and organizes your files on your computer, allowing for faster searching using the Spotlight feature." I've looked around online for others with this issue, but what I've found so far doesn't offer any solutions that I haven't tried already. Is there no way to use an external hard drive any more with Time Machine? Do I either have to pay through the nose for ICloud or not use Time Machine and just have to back-up files the old fashioned way and not do system backups? https://preview.redd.it/oe0u2a7h686e1.png?width=528&format=png&auto=webp&s=69b2a3d987333c66e3af7e9895c6e3db0e0eec4f EDIT: I solved this myself moments after posting this, LOL, but hopefully someone else can benefit. I got the answer here: mds_stores prevents unmounting of externa… - Apple Community And the answer was this process, except I didn't retry the unmount but after step #6 I just retried setting up Time Machine on the drive and it worked:

1. Open up Activity Monitor
2. Locate the mds_stores process
3. Click once to highlight the mds_stores process
4. Click on the X icon just above "Process Name"
5. Click on Force Quit
6. Enter your Admin credentials and click Okay
7. Now retry your unmount.
   

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