WinMerge 2.16.56 Release Notes
- About This Release
- What Is New in 2.16.56
- What Is New in 2.16.55 beta?
- Known issues
April 2026
About This Release
This is a WinMerge 2.16.56 stable release.
This release replaces earlier WinMerge stable releases as a recommended release.
Please submit bug reports to our bug-tracker.
What Is New in 2.16.56
General
-
Show error message when entering invalid path in header bar (PR #3322)
-
Add recent items and clipboard history to header bar menu (PR #3330)
Folder compare
-
Add Folder comparison mode with archive extraction support (PR #3320)
-
Refactor: unify open parameters and move recurse to OpenFolderParams (PR #3326)
-
Add codepage filter UI and hasbom field support (PR #3318)
Archive support
-
Use 7-Zip IsArc API for archive detection and refactor format guessing logic (PR #3323)
-
Prioritize explicitly selected plugins over archive detection (PR #3324)
Translations
- Translation updates:
Documentation
What Is New in 2.16.55 Beta
General
-
Fix incorrect GetAsyncKeyState usage for modifier key detection (PR #3257)
-
Update POCO C++ Libraries to 1.15.1 (PR #3292)
File compare
-
BugFix: Fix keyboard input issue after Alt+mouse operations (PR #3254)
-
BugFix: Register self-compare in MRU and refactor command line parameter
buil… (PR #3266) -
Refactor save confirmation logic using SaveClosingDlg::ShowAndSave
(PR #3256) -
Enable IME text reconversion in editor view (PR #3214)
Image compare
-
BugFix: Fix crash caused by OnClose being called twice in image compare
window (PR #3255) -
Speedup image comparision slider during WipeEffect (PR winimerge/#33)
Folder compare
-
BugFix: Fix an issue where skipped items were not properly filtered during
folder/file comparison. (PR #3267) -
BugFix: Fix potential hang in DiffWorker shutdown (PR #3300)
-
Extend “Merge renamed items” option to support moved items (PR #3181)
-
Refactor compare engines to use DiffContext (PR #3197)
-
Refactor compare engines to write results into DIFFITEM and add
FullQuickCompare (PR #3201) -
Add e:/e!: filter prefixes for files and directories (PR #3205)
-
Add replaceWithList and regexReplaceWithList filter functions (PR #3213)
-
Add Replace Lists menu for Rename/Move detection keys (PR #3215)
-
Make replace and replaceWithList case-insensitive (PR #3222)
-
Add directives (
@cs,@ci,@name) to filter expressions (PR #3253) -
Add "Filter by This Column" to folder view header context menu (PR #3268)
-
Add display filter attributes and UI for filtering by comparison results
(PR #3284) -
Add ability to hide empty folders in tree mode (PR #3293)
-
Add Unpacker and Prediffer fields to file filter expressions (PR #3295)
-
Enable dynamic increase/decrease of compare threads (PR #3304)
Plugins
-
Add PrettifyPO and ValidatePO plugins for .po/.pot files (PR #3190)
-
Feature request: In CompareMSExcelFiles do not append a sheet order number
to individual tsv, txt or html files (#3212) -
Add CFR Java decompiler plugin for .class file comparison (PR #3242,#3243)
Translations
- Translation updates:
- Brazilian (PR #3185,#3194,#3219,#3231,#3245,#3275,#3287,#3303)
- Chinese Simplified (PR #3183,#3191,#3220,#3228,#3244)
- Corsican (PR #3259,#3299)
- French (PR #3239)
- German (PR #3187,#3196,#3217,#3232,#3237,#3251,#3274,#3288,#3297)
- Hungarian (PR #3186,#3238,#3252)
- Italian (PR #3199,#3218,#3229,#3235,#3236,#3246,#3249,#3269,#3272,#3285,#3302)
- Japanese (PR #3258)
- Korean (PR #3247,#3279,#3301)
- Lithuanian (PR #3184,#3192,#3230,#3276,#3290)
- Polish (PR #3233,#3273)
- Russian (PR #3226,#3281)
- Turkish (PR #3204,#3221,#3227,#3250,#3271,#3286,#3298)
Documentation
-
Added: Community standard files (like issue templates, pr template).
(PR #3225) -
Add context IDs to PO files & strip comments for releases (PR #3296)
Known issues
- Pressing OK in the Options window while the INI file specified by /inifile is open for comparison in WinMerge may corrupt the file. (#2685)
- Suggestion to make the result of image comparison more reliable (#1391)
- Crashes when comparing large files (#325)
- Very slow to compare significantly different directories (#322)
- Vertical scrollbar breaks after pasting text (#296)
What's Changed
- update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3307
- Update of Lithuanian translation by @Tichij in #3308
- Update Russian.po by @Timon34 in #3309
- Update French translations in WinMerge PO file by @slolo2000 in #3312
- Refactor file save logic: extract backup and read-only handling into FileSaveHelper by @sdottaka in #3313
- Add codepage filter UI and hasbom field support by @sdottaka in #3318
- Doc - Italian language - Updated by @bovirus in #3319
- Show error message when entering path in header bar by @sdottaka in #3322
- Prioritize explicitly selected plugins over archive detection by @sdottaka in #3324
- Use 7-Zip IsArc API for archive detection and refactor format guessing logic by @sdottaka in #3323
- Update for the French manual by @t3chnob0y in #3325
- Refactor: unify open parameters and move recurse to OpenFolderParams by @sdottaka in #3326
- Add Folder comparison mode with archive extraction support by @sdottaka in #3320
- Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3328
- Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3329
- update zh-cn translation by @yingang in #3331
- Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3333
- Update Korean by @VenusGirl in #3334
- Italian language by @bovirus in #3335
- Add recent items and clipboard history to header bar menu by @sdottaka in #3330
- Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3339
- Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3340
- Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3341
- Italian language update by @bovirus in #3342
- update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3344
Full Changelog: v2.16.54.2...v2.16.56