Show tar files sizes

Solution 1:

This should list all files and detailed information about them:

tar -ztvf somefile.tar.gz

Solution 2:

Use

tar --list --verbose --gunzip --file backup.tar.gz > backup_list.txt

to create a file containing a list of all the files in your archive.

You can then grep foo backup_list.txt to find things, or edit, sed, cut, view, etc.