DiffMerge is an free (not open source) application to visually compare and merge files for Windows, Mac OS X and Unix. Download the software here. Download DifferMerger. KDiff3 is a open source file and directory diff and merge tool for Windows, Linux and Mac which compares and merges two or three text input files or directories. This is an aggregation of the answers posted on SO's deleted clone, Graphical diff for Mac OS X. It includes links to each product, and the current price since last edit in USD. It includes links to each product, and the current price since last edit in USD.
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WinMerge is an excellent and very powerful file merging tool, but as the name would imply, it's Windows only. What's a good equivalent on the Mac?
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16 Answers
You can use FileMerge, Apple's diff solution. It's free and it comes with every Mac OS X install.
The only downside is that you have to install the Developer Tools. You can find them on your DVD install that came when you bought your Mac (Snow Leopard or earlier). You can also get the developer tools from the App Store if your version of the OS supports that.
Then, you can find it at /Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge.app
I've found the following applications:
FileMerge (
opendiff)It's no longer bundled with Xcode Command Line Tools, you must install Xcode from either the App Store or the Apple Developer Website.
Open sourced beautifier and language aware code comparison tool for many languages.
Can be installed using Homebrew via command:
brew install meldCan be installed using Homebrew via command:
brew install tkdiffAvailable on the App Store
Commercial with free trial.
Commercial with free trial.
No longer in Homebrew, it has not been developed/updated since 2014.
See also:
- Comparison of file comparison tools at Wikipediafor the full list.
kenorbAgree with the recommendation for FileMerge.app. You also have the free, cross-platform DiffMerge program, but I like FileMerge better.
Loïc WolffStumbled upon this thread today and thought I'd contribute this new cross-platform OSS diff tool that supports file and directory comparision. It is a good alternative to WinMerge for Mac.http://meldmerge.org/
Meld is a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers. Meld helps you compare files, directories, and version controlled projects. It provides two- and three-way comparison of both files and directories, and has support for many popular version control systems.
Meld helps you review code changes and understand patches. It might even help you to figure out what is going on in that merge you keep avoiding.
Best Diff Tool For Windows
A modern, powerful, but paid (currently Mar-2013 $69.99) file merging application for OS X is Kaleidoscope. It handles folders, files, and even images. Ad copy from the page:
Online Diff Tool
Compare text in Blocks, Fluid and Unified layouts in both Two-Way and Three-Way modes. Quickly navigate and search through the most readable diff you've ever seen.
Araxis Merge (http://www.araxis.com/merge_mac/index.html) is the gold standard in this area and has a similar cost (what is the weight of bits?). There are Windows and Mac versions, and it is truly excellent if you find yourself spending a lot of time doing multiway diffs and merges (more common in these days of distributed version control systems).
The pricing starts (as of Sept 2011) at $129.
Maybe you will find the app SourceTree interesting: http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ SourceTree is a free Mac client for Git and Mercurial version control systems. Therefor it isn't a general purpose diff or merge tool but it is worth mentioning it.
Beyond Compare is now in beta for the Mac. It's the best diff/merge program I’ve used on Windows and is definitely worth checking out.
Perforce, a source control application, has a free * diff and merge tool that is cross platform and works fine on my mac. It's called P4Merge.
It presents file-diffs very nicely and handles three-way merges like a champ. As a long-time WinMerge user I was very happy with it. Its use of little gem-like icons in a 3-way merge takes some getting used to. One icon is for my change, one for their's, and one for the common ancestor. Once you get that straight it was very helpful.
* it was free, but may now be subject to Perforce's licensing. Perforce in-general is restricted to a certain number of users and/or files unless you buy it. However, these restrictions only make sense when using their server-side software. These client-only tools can't really be licensed like that. I'll update if I ever hear back from the company on this matter.
There's an application called SemanticMerge for Mac.
SemanticMerge, as the name says :-), is a tool able to merge based on code structure instead of blocks of text. It basically means it parses the code first and then merges based on methods, classes and so on, so it is quite refactor friendly since it can match methods/functions even when they've been moved to different locations within the file.
At the time of writing this, Semantic supports .NET, C, Java, C++ and JavaScript.
Nimesh NeemaI am a Mac user attached to elegance and esthetics as a significant factor in productivity for cognitive reasons. A fully native and elegant Human Interface is for me of paramount importance.
I tried many contenders (Araxis, P4Merge and many others). I purchased several. I loved Changes for a long while. Now my favorite is Kaleidoscope. It provides 3-way merge, it can compare images in a smart way, it has a slick and elegant interface.
When an application claims to be cross-platform, that rings an alarm bell. More often than not, it means an ugly, non-native interface. Having to cringe when working is not my idea of having fun at work.
Meld is a good option..
steps to install meld on Mac :
Install MacPorts:
Installation information can be found in : MacPort installationBefore installing MacPort, you have to install Xcode and the Xcode Command Line Tools if your computer doesn't have them.
Open your terminal and execute following commands
i) Installing rarian :'sudo port install rarian'
II) Installing meld :'sued port install meld'Configure the dbus service to start at boot
I) sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist
II) launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plistdfAdd LC_ALL variable to the .bash_profile file at your /home directoryexport LC_ALL=en_US
Type meld command in the terminal and the application will be launched for you.
Win Diff
I use VisualDiffer.
It's not as good as WinMerge, but pretty close and very cheap (only $34.99 at the moment!). It is promising.
Here's a screenshot.
JonnyJonnyWe're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed.
My favorite free solution for merging the contents of files is KDiff3. KDiff3 can do two-way and three-way merges, has a decent GUI and has some pretty powerful features to assist with the merge.
My favorite non-free, but inexpensive ($30-ish) solution for merging the contents of files is Beyond Compare 3. Yes, Beyond Compare 3 is only available as a native Windows or Linux app, but I run it in WiNE via the easy to use Wineskin Winery app.
When it comes to merging the content of directories both KDiff3 and Beyond Compare 3 can do it, but IMO KDiff3 is not very usable in this regard. Fortunately Beyond Compare 3 excels at directory merges, even on OS X.
Seems like there were plans to make WinMerge 3 available for Mac too:
I haven't made my choice for Mac. But on Windows I use WinMerge, on Linux Meld (which is also available for Mac), currently using twdiff, I already tried FileMerge.app, and going to try DiffMerge.
A note about Meld:
Meld does work on OS X and Windows, but there are no all-in-one packages for those systems available at the moment. On OS X, Meld is available from MacPorts or Fink.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged software-recommendationmerge .
Free File Diff Tool
I am looking for an application to compare two PDF files.
Application must:
- be able to highlight differences between the two documents
- be mac-compatible as I will be using it on a mac
- be free, I do not want to spend any money
I will be mostly using this for comparing the new versions of the apple developer license agreements (since I am an apple developer who is too lazy to read a 40+ page document every time a minor change is made)
The application does not need to be from the App Store, nor does it need to need to be official (some knockoff from GitHub will be fine as long as it does not contain any viruses or bundled crapware) all I need is for it to do what it is intended to do (compare PDF's) very well.
If you would like to go above and beyond, free to take on the challenge of developing the application yourself (or modifying an existing one).
I won't use this application very often and will accept it in any of the following formats:
- Mac app store app
- Java app
- Web app
- AppleScript file (I will need to see the source code)
- Automator workflow
- basically anything that will run on Mac OS X Yosemite (non-beta) and perform the intended task effectively
Tom5 Answers
You can use DiffNow:
- it's free
- web-app diff tool
- works via pasting text; uploading files; using URLs
The only limitation is that files must be < 2048kb.
The sample on their site (first pdf vs. second pdf):
Tomcompare (command from ImageMagick)
If you want to compare the visual appearance of page 4 of a.pdf with page 6 of b.pdf, you can use ImageMagick's command line tool compare. Here is a variation of commands to try:
(ImageMagick's frame/page counting is zero-based; so '[3]' means 'page 4'...) This will create 'delta' documents, where each pixel that is different between the pages is painted in red:
- The first variant keeps a pale version of
a.pdfas a background image to the page. - The second variant uses a resolution of
300 PPI(instead of the default72 PPI). - The third variant creates a white+red delta only (leaving away the pale background).
- The fourth variant does mark as red only those pixels which have a color difference of more than 5%.
It should be noted, that the comparison only works if the respective page sizes for the compared files are exactly identical.
diffpdf (GUI application)
DiffPDF is a GUI application which can process 2 or 3 PDF input and show the differences:
- There is a mode that compares text content only, highlighting word and character differences.
- There is another mode that compares visual differences and highlights them.
The home page only offers a paying Windows version now, but earlier versions were free. You can grab the source code e.g. from Debian, it includes compilation instructions for OS X.
unorDiffPDF nowadays is an paid software for Windows only, but it was previously free and also available for OS X. You can still download such a previous version.
It allows both visual and textual comparison.
When comparing PDF files, you have the choice between:
- comparing the contents (i.e. the actual text)
- comparing the pages as a whole (visual comparison).
While you might be looking for the first type of comparison, I wanted to offer a way to compare two PDF files page-by-page.
As I've had this requirement regularly in the past, and couldn't find the necessary software to perform the comparison, I wrote my own and made it available on GitHub. It's called pyPdfCompare and is available free of charge.
It runs fine on OS X and Windows but does require you to install Python 3, Ghostscript and ImageMagick. Furthermore, you'll need to perform a pip install for the libraries it uses.
It may be a little too technical and/or not exactly what you were looking for, but I wanted to offer the option anyway, for the sake of completeness.
TomFor your use case, comparing the text and discarding all formatting and non-text elements would work well. You can run the pdftotext utility on each file and then a text comparison tool on the result. On OS X, you can install pdftotext from various free software distribution channels such as Brew or MacPorts, it's part of the poppler package.
Cas Cremers's pdfdiff.py script automates the running of pdftotext (which needs to be installed separately) and of a diff viewer (ditto).
The result is similar to DiffNow cited by ᔕᖺᘎᕊ, I think they use pdftotext internally and plug the output into a text diff webapp.