The Folder compare window displays all of the files and subfolders compared in a sortable list view. Files and subfolders may be synchronized by copying or deleting, and actions may be performed on multiple items simultaneously. The columns displayed may be changed and reordered.
Folder comparison has two different modes. The mode is selected in the Open dialog with the "Include Subfolders"-checkbox.
When subfolders are included, all subfolders and their contents are compared. Files are displayed depending on the options on the
menu (eg, ). Common folders are never displayed (but all files inside of them are). Folders only existing on one side are displayed according to the menu options (eg, ).This mode does not allow browsing folders and can be slow if there are many subfolders and files. But it is easy to see and handle different files in whole folder structure.
When subfolders are not included only files in selected folders and names of subfolders are shown.
This mode allows browsing folders by opening subfolders and parent folders. This mode has the advantage of speed, as it may be much faster when there are many subfolders that need not be examined. Also the display may be easier to manage, showing only items in one folder.
WinMerge 2.4 is finally capable to compare large binary files. There is new Compare by Quick Contents -compare method which makes it possible. For more information about different compare methods see Options & configuration -chapter. In WinMerge 2.4 all files bigger than 4 MB (megabytes) are automatically compared with Compare by Quick Contents -method. Downsides for this method are that linefilters do not work and there is no difference counts information in folder compare UI. For most cases this should not matter since so big files usually are binary files.
For advanced users: If that limit does not feel good (you have lots of big text files) it can be changed via registry value: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Thingamahoochie\WinMerge\Settings\QuickMethodLimit. As usual be careful when changing values directly to registry!
During folder compare proceeds, following statepane is shown:
Statepane shows several kinds of status and progress information. At the top there are numbers of already compared items per category. So this compare has found 107 similar text files so far. Bottom of pane is progressbar. And left to progressbar are numbers of items compared and total items found to compare. So this compare has compared 203 items from total of 312 items.
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Progressbar is for item counts. As there usually are different sized files in compare it does not directly map to time used/remaining. So 50/100 items does not strictly mean compare is in half by time used. |
Folder compare can be stopped by selecting "
"-button and results for files and folders compared so far are shown. After folder compare finishes, " " button text is changed to " ". Now statepane can be closed by selecting that button or pressing any key from keyboard.Statepane can be opened from
-menu again if needed. Statepane always shows current status of compare so it can be used to verify there are no different files left to handle.![]() |
Enable option Close Compare statepane automatically and statepane closes automatically after compare is ready. |
Files and folders are compared and divided into several categories:
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In "
" menu there are several choices for selecting which categories listed above to show/hide.: shows and hides files detected as identical
: shows and hides files detected as different
: shows and hides files and directories present only in left side
: shows and hides files and directories present only in right side
: shows and hides files detected as binaries
: shows and hides files and directories filtered out by file filters
By default these columns are visible:
Filename
Directory : Relative folder name for compare path. If subfolders are not included this is empty.
Comparison result : Verbose comparison result (see also Short Result)
Left Date & Right Date: Modification date of item. Note that newer date is prefixed with asterisk "*".
Extension : File's extension, handy for sorting
Following columns are available through "
"-dialog:Binary : Column contains asterisk "*" when file is binary. Handy for sorting and to use with "Short Result"-column.
Left Attributes & Right Attributes : Shows file attributes.
Left Creation Time & Right Creation Time : Item creation time.
Left Encoding & Right Encoding : File encoding.
Left File Version & Right File Version : Version number from file if present. Note that this is read for only some binary files.
Left Size & Right Size : File size in bytes.
Newer File : Shows which side is newer.
#differences : Amount of total differences found from files.
#sig. differences : Amount of significant differences, total differences - ignored differences.
Browsing folders is only possible when subfolders are not included to compare (Include Subfolders checkbox is not checked in Open-dialog). Parent folders (".."-item) and subfolders existing in both sides can be compared by double-clicking with mouse over them or selecting them and pressing Enter.
Parent folder can be opened if it is not same directory. These two icons indicate if parent folder can be opened:
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In addition moving selection using mouse or keyboard, also
-menu navigation commands, toolbar buttons and shortcut keys can be used. For example " " finds next different file and selects it.![]() |
Unique files and folders are considered as different ones. |
Multiple files/folders can be selected. However not all operations are possible with multi-selection.
Folder compare allows user to copy and delete files and folders. File operations are available through context menu (right-click with mouse). Also files can be opened to associated program or into external editor.
In file operation menu, there are one or two numbers shown, depending on files/folders selected. If there is one number shown, for example "
" that means there is 5 items selected, and all items can be copied. But if there is two numbers shown, for example " ", that means there are 5 items selected but only 3 items can be copied.Most common operation is copying files from side to side. File can be copied from side to side using
-menu items, toolbar buttons and context menu. If multiple files are selected, or file to overwrite is read-only, confirmation dialog is shown.Sometimes it is useful to copy certain files and/or directories to another directory instead of another compared directory. This can be done selecting "
" or " " items.Another file/folder operation is deleting. Items in another or both sides can be deleted. There is "Send deleted files into Recycle Bin" option in system options (See Options & Configuration -chapter). It is highly recommended to keep that option enabled so deletion can be undone if accidents happen. Note however recycle bin does not help if its disabled from Windows settings.
Moving is just shortcut for copy + delete.
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File/folder deletion cannot be undone if Recycle Bin is not used! |
There are three items in
-menus:: Opens file with application registered handling filetype for Windows, if there is one.
: Open with external editor. Default editor can be selected from options, Notepad is used by default.
Open With..." dialog asking from user with which application files should be opened.
: Opens "![]() |
Selecting With Registered Application when folder is selected usually opens that folder into new Explorer window. |
-menu in directory compare context menu allows adding selected items to archive file.
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Archive support requires that 7-Zip plugin is installed to system. |
Zip-submenumenu has four items:
: Adds left-side files and folders (recursively) to the archive file
: Adds right-side files and folders (recursively) to the archive file
: Adds files and folders (recursively) from both sides to the archive file. Because filenames are same, files must be put to subfolders inside archive. Left-side files are put to subfolder Original/ and right-side files are put to subfolder Altered/.
: This is like above , but this item adds only different files (including unique files) from both sides.
After selecting one of
-menu items dialog pops up asking filename and archive type from user. WinMerge cannot add files to existing archive files but it always creates new archive file.![]() |
WinMerge looks for subfolders Original/ and Altered/ in archive files. If archive file contains these subfolders and same filename is given to both sides WinMerge compares contents of those two folders. |
If directory compare shows contents of archive files WinMerge updates changes done to files in file compare into original archive file. But WinMerge does not update archive contents for files added/deleted/copied. User can create a new archive file using above menuitems instead.
In context menu there are items for copying selected items' paths or filenames to clipboard. This feature makes it easy so get list of changed files, for changelogs etc.
has three subchoices like other file handling functions. It copies full pathnames of selected items to clipboard, one per line.
copies only filenames without paths.
There are many ways to customize folder compare:
Sorting by column : Sorted by column can be selected by clicking column name with mouse. Little arrow appears next to column name indicating that results are sorted by this column and sort order.
Selecting visible columns : "Display Columns" dialog can be opened from -menu or by right-clicking column header with mouse.
Changing order of columns : Order can be changed in "Display Columns" dialog or by drag & dropping column names with mouse.
If user wants to protect one or both sides from changes, user can set them to read-only from
-menu.![]() |
Setting read-only protects files and folders in current compare view only. |
Protected status is inherited to opened files from directory compare. If user compares two folders, sets another to protected and opens two files for comparing, file opened from protected side has protection set too.
Protection status is shown in statusbar, there are own panes for left and right side.
Selected items can be hidden from view using context menu item
. Hidden items are not shown until next refresh is done. All hidden items can be re-shown selecting -> .Hiding items is handy to remove already handled items from the view. So when you have merged files, use context menu item to hide them. It is a lot easier to see what items are left to merge. Get used to it! It saves your time!
Full refresh of large folders can take a long time. In 2.2 and earlier versions of WinMerge user always had to do full refresh after editing files outside WinMerge. WinMerge 2.4 can refresh just selected items. Select
from context menu.