Best app for viewing which files Time Machine backed up (Monterey)?

Morgan Adams1 wrote:

I need to see exactly which files were in the latest Time Machine backup—to diagnose why every backup is ~3GB even though I have only edited a few small files.

What apps are recommended currently?

(I've seen some years-old apps recommended, as well as difficult-to-parse command line utilities—but I need something for Mac OS Monterey. A "real app" properly signed and notarized.

what years old apps(?) for comparison...?

Time Machine is designed as a hands free/ no user interaction backup. There is a certain amount of 'magic ' that the software uses—with no documentation.

Just how is this an issue "to diagnose why every backup is ~3GB" ?

If you have an issue— the way to sort TM issues is erase/reformat/initialize the drive and start anew Backup—and compare your results.

I would plug it in a forget about it—

Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

When Time Machine runs , it is also moving "local sanapshots" to the external disk...

About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support

you can see these local snapshots from Terminal, copy and paste:

 tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

TM activity from log, extracts Time Machine activity logged during the previous 24 hours, copy and paste:

 printf '\e[3J' && log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 24h | grep -F 'eMac' | grep -Fv 'etat' | awk -F']' '{print substr($0,1,19), $NF}'  

You can read more about hard links here:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/300420/does-a-time-machine-backup-directory-contain-full-or-incremental-data

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

As already outlined by previous posting and then the question becomes, how often it TM Backup set to backup any changes. Hourly, manually etc.

Is the Assigned Drive always connected to the computer or removed after TM Backup has done its' magic ?

If the TM Backup is set to hourly and the drive is not attached, TM Backup will create Snap Shoots on the Internal Drive and will only move them to the external assigned drive when it is attached. Thusly, the 3 GB backup depending on how frequent the User ( you ) attached the drive.

Morgan Adams1 wrote:

I'd be happy for any utility that supports Monterey, with more user-friendliness than a command-line utility. (I'm sure many/all of them use those same command-line utils behind the scenes.)

Examples: TimeTracker helped me a TON in the past—but no longer exists. BackupLoupe exists, but it's listed as unsupported "legacy" software for High Sierra and older.

So I appreciate the detailed info above, but I hope this resolves the objections to my asking the question. If the answer is "there are no such apps anymore" then so be it. I'm hoping otherwise, because TimeTracker was super useful.

I have no idea about your third party apps— I suspect your google search works as well as mine.

I see your BackUpLoupe here (?) https://www.soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/