Anyway of seeing what Time Machine is backing up?

[chublet]

My Time machine backs up as normal - hourly, daily, weekly - and I have excluded as many folders as I think I don't need etc. But I just noticed it doing a backup of 458MB and I can't for the life of me work out what would need backing up in the last hour/day.

Is there any way of seeing what files will be backed up at the next backup so I can see whether I am in fact backing one up that I don't want to?

 

[cruisin]

It doesn't do partial file backups, so if it is a big file that is modified it will transfer the whole file again or if you have a bunch of files even slightly modified it will transfer everything again.

 

[chublet]

Thanks for the reply, that makes sense - I guess if I am streaming something over Plex then as its is transcoding it may be making a temp file somewhere which is then being backed up, possibly the case? Same with safari, if I am browsing web sites during the hour between backups it will copy the updated History file I presume?

Not a massive issue for me but I do like to know what is going on!

 

[akidd]

I wouldn't worry it, it's tiny. It's when it says 20gb even though it did it yesterday (with no films, streaming or big PS) it concerns me.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Start Terminal

Enter the following: tmutil compare

which reforms a difference

For an explanation from terminal type: man tmutil

and scroll down to the relevant section