Native app for macOS 26
Time Machine, finally legible.
Your Mac has been backing up quietly for weeks. Time Machine Display reads its records and tells you what it never does: how big each backup is, exactly what changed, and whether any quietly failed.
macOS 26 · Apple silicon · Developer ID signed & notarized
28 backups · since Jul 13
What it shows you
The questions Finder's Time Machine can't answer.
It only lets you restore. This tells you how your backups are actually doing, and where your space is going.
Per-backup sizes, instantly
Time Machine records exactly how much each backup changed. Time Machine Display reads that ledger directly instead of crawling the disk for hours, so every backup's size and file count are there the moment you open it.
Catch the backups that failed silently
Time Machine tries, fails, and says nothing. By comparing attempts against completions, it surfaces the ones that never finished. Finder won't show you those.
Compare any two backups
Pick two points in time and see precisely which files were added, modified, or removed, down to the byte, using Time Machine's own compare engine.
Every version of every file
Trace one file across your whole history: when it changed, how big it was each time, and pull any past version back out.
At a glance, from the menu bar
A menu bar item that turns amber the moment a backup is overdue or the destination fills up. Green means you can stop thinking about it.
Works over the network, too
Backing up to a NAS? It's built for slow, encrypted SMB destinations. Every read is streamed, cancellable, and cached, so it stays quick.
Why it's different
It never invents a number.
Backup sizes are hard to get right. APFS clones and hard links make a naive measurement wrong by orders of magnitude. So the app is careful about what it claims, and labels every figure by how it was obtained. When a number would be a guess, it says so instead.
The same principle runs the whole app: it reads Time Machine's own records, never fabricates precision the data can't support, and does everything on your Mac.
Under the hood
Reads what Time Machine writes. Nothing more.
No scanning your disk, no analytics, no account. It leans on the records macOS already keeps. The only thing it ever sends is an update check, and only if you allow one.
Reads the ledger
Time Machine keeps a manifest of every backup's exact size and file count. The app reads that one file instead of crawling the disk, so sizes appear instantly.
Diffs on demand
Ask what changed between two backups and it runs Apple's own comparison, streaming and caching the result so you never wait for the same answer twice.
Watches quietly
A tiny menu bar presence tracks cadence and capacity, flags overdue or failed backups the moment they happen, and stays out of the way otherwise.
Know your backups are actually working.
Free while in development. Signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it installs with a double-click and no Terminal. Removing it is just as tidy: an Uninstall command in the app menu, or drag it to the Trash and its background helper cleans itself up.
Requires macOS 26 Tahoe · Apple silicon · 7.8 MB
Support development
Free to use. A coffee never hurts.
Time Machine Display is free and independent. If it has spared you a backup scare, you can chip in toward its upkeep. There's no pressure, and no features are locked behind it. Contributions are voluntary and non-refundable.