What is WinMerge? 

WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows.  WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. 

Screenshot

See the screenshots page for more screenshots. 

Features

WinMerge is highly useful for determining what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.  WinMerge can be used as an external differencing/merging tool or as a standalone application. 

In addition, WinMerge has many helpful supporting features that make comparing, synchronising, and merging as easy and useful as possible:

General

Supports Microsoft Windows XP or newer

Handles Windows, Unix and Mac text file formats

Unicode support

Tabbed interface

File Compare

3-way File Comparison New! 

Visual differencing and merging of text files

Flexible editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers and word-wrap

Highlights differences inside lines

Difference pane shows current difference in two vertical panes

Location pane shows map of files compared

Moved lines detection

Folder Compare

Regular Expression based file filters allow excluding and including items

Fast compare using file sizes and dates

Compares one folder or includes all subfolders

Can show folder compare results in a tree-style view

3-way Folder Comparison

Image Compare New! 

Support many types of images

Can highlight the differences with blocks

Overlaying of the pictures is possible

Table Compare New! 

Shows CSV/TSV file contents in table format

Text can be wrapped for each column

Version Control

Creates patch files (Normal-, Context- and Unified formats)

Resolve conflict files

Other

Shell Integration (supports 64-bit Windows versions)

Archive file support using 7-Zip

Plugin support

Localizable interface

Online manual and installed HTML Help manual

WinMerge 2.16.8 - latest stable version

WinMerge 2.16.8 is the latest stable version, and is recommended for most users. 

Project News

Support

If you need support, look at our support page for more information how you can get it. 

Developers

WinMerge is an open source project, which means that the program is maintained and developed by volunteers. 

In addition, WinMerge is translated into a number of different languages.  See our information on translating WinMerge into your own language.