time machine – Displaying distinction between APFS snapshots

The unique query is sort of 5 years previous and snapshot use has matured. Additionally, it isn’t clear whether or not the questioner is enthusiastic about Time Machine snapshots solely or all APFS snapshots. This reply refers solely to Time Machine snapshots on a Time Machine vacation spot quantity and makes use of macOS 15.2.

tmutil can examine any two Time Machine snapshots. The command is

tmutil examine [-@acdefglmnstuEUX][-D depth] [-I name] [backup_path | path1 path2]

The arguments are outlined in man tmutil.

For example of its utilization, in Terminal, I typed tmutil examine -@st -D 3, chosen one backup path in Finder and did a drag and drop to Terminal, then chosen one other path and did one other drag and drop. Right here is the complete command:

tmutil examine -@st -D 3 /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers  /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2024-12-30-055534.backup/2024-12-30-055534.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers

This compares modification date and sizes of information within the /Customers folder in two backups with a depth restrict of three. Observe the repetition of the date-time – that is produced by the drag and drop. The output:

! 18.0K   (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/Shared/.DS_Store
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/Shared/.apsgprsgs
! 1.8K    (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/Shared/.apsgprsgs/registry.json
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/Shared/Adobe/OOBE
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/Shared/AdobeGCData
! 13.0K   (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/Shared/AdobeGCData/AdobeNGLAppIDMap.db
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby
! 46.0K   (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.DS_Store
! 8.0K    (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.config/.DS_Store
! 29B     (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.cups/lpoptions
! 8.0K    (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.dropbox/.DS_Store
! 244.0K  (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.dropbox/apex.sqlite3
! 4.0M    (measurement, mtime)         /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.dropbox/apex.sqlite3-wal
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/.dropbox/instance1
...
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/Library/Safari
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/Library/UnifiedAssetFramework
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/Library/studentd
! 14.0K   (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/Photos/.DS_Store
!         (mtime)               /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup/BethSSD - Information/Customers/gilby/Photos/SystemLibrary.photoslibrary

-------------------------------------
Added:         313.0K
Eliminated:       148.6K
Modified:       4.6M

To handle the execution time I recommend:

• Use the -D depth argument needs to be used the place attainable;
• Use -I to excluded folders like /Purposes.

So I used this when evaluating two complete backups:

tmutil examine -@st -D 6 -I Purposes /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2025-01-07-220822.backup/2025-01-07-220822.backup  /Volumes/.timemachine/44F8AD86-E0E6-4765-A564-B6A7869D6076/2024-12-30-055534.backup/2024-12-30-055534.backup

However pass over the -D and -I if you actually need every part.