Line and word-level highlighting
Changed lines are paired up and the words that differ inside them are marked, so a renamed variable doesn’t hide in a sea of red.
Features
Every compare, one fast window.
Text, 3-way merge, folders and raw bytes, plus a headless command line for scripts. DiffScope picks the right view for what you open and stays out of your way.
Text compare
See exactly what changed, down to the word
Two files side by side with changed lines tinted and the changed words inside them highlighted. Hide the noise, edit either side and save without touching the file’s encoding.
src/decoder.js: HEAD ↔ Working Tree — DiffScope
Ignore what doesn’t matter
Ignore all whitespace, whitespace changes or leading/trailing spaces, plus case and blank lines. Re-indents stop drowning out real edits.
Edit, copy across, save
Double-click a line to edit it, copy a block left or right with Alt+←/→, and undo across both panes with Ctrl+Z.
Saves what it read
UTF-8, UTF-8 with BOM, UTF-16 LE/BE and Latin-1 are kept on save, and CRLF stays CRLF. If only encoding or line endings differ, a notice says so.
Smooth on huge files
Virtualized rendering keeps scrolling fluid on 200,000-line files. The overview map on the right shows every change at a glance.
Keyboard-first navigation
F7 / Shift+F7 (or Alt+↓/↑) jump between differences. Ctrl+S saves. Read-only panes protect files you shouldn’t touch.
3-way merge
Resolve conflicts with the whole picture
Mine, Base and Theirs side by side above the merged result. Changes that don’t overlap merge themselves, so you only spend time on the real conflicts.
- Automatic merge of non-conflicting changes, with the same rules as
git merge-file - Per conflict: take Mine, Theirs, Mine + Theirs, Theirs + Mine or Base
- Shift+click a button to resolve every remaining conflict the same way
- A “N of M left” counter and next / previous unresolved conflict
- Edit the result directly, with undo and redo
- Exits
0only when saved with no conflicts left, so git and TortoiseGit know when you’re done
- 5
- ways to resolve a conflict
- = git
- merge output matches
git merge-file - 0 / 1
- exit codes git can trust
Folder compare
Two whole trees, every difference
Point it at two folders to see what was added, removed or changed across the whole tree, then open any pair with a double-click.
- Recursive compare by content, by size, or by size and date
- Exclude globs such as
.git; node_modules; *.o - Filter to all, differences, same or orphans
- Tree view with expand / collapse all and live status counts
- Double-click a pair to open it in text or hex compare
- Works with
git difftool --dir-diff
- 3
- compare modes: content, size, date
- 4
- filters: all, differences, same, orphans
- CI
- headless
--folderreport
Hex compare
Byte-level compare for big binaries
Firmware images, archives and build outputs. Both files are streamed rather than loaded, so a 100 MB+ image opens without a stall.
- Differing bytes marked in both the hex and the ASCII columns
- Go to any offset, in hex (
0x1F0) or decimal (496) - Jump between differences with F7 / Shift+F7
- Binary files are detected automatically, so the hex view opens by itself
- Bytes past the end of the shorter file are shown as differences
- 100 MB+
- files, streamed in chunks
- 16
- bytes per row, hex and ASCII
- F7
- next difference
CLI & automation
The same engines, without a window
Add --headless and DiffScope writes a unified diff, a merged file or a folder report, then tells your script what happened through its exit code.
- Unified diff byte-identical to
git diff, with-U Ncontext - 3-way merge with git-style conflict markers;
--diff3adds the base section - Folder report with
--folder,--excludeand--compare=content|size|size-mtime - Speaks three dialects: TortoiseGit
/base:switches, GNU--longoptions and Beyond Compare’s four-argument merge order - git-bash paths like
/c/Users/x/a.txtare converted automatically
- 0
- Identical, or merged cleanly
- 1
- Different, or conflicts left (written with markers)
- 2
- Error. For a merge, nothing is written
PowerShell
# Unified diff, same format as git diff
DiffScope.exe --headless old\app.js new\app.js > changes.diff
# Ignore whitespace (-w), case (-i) and blank lines (-B)
DiffScope.exe --headless -w -i -B a.txt b.txt > changes.diff
# 3-way merge; conflicts are written with markers (exit 1)
DiffScope.exe --headless --merge --base base.c --mine mine.c --theirs theirs.c -o merged.c
# Folder compare by content, skipping build output
DiffScope.exe --headless --folder --exclude node_modules --exclude "*.o" v2.3 v2.4 > tree.txt
# Beyond Compare's positional merge order also works
DiffScope.exe mine.c theirs.c base.c merged.cDiffScope.exe is a GUI program: redirect its output to a file or a pipe. Exit codes work everywhere.
Integration
Right-click › Diff, from TortoiseGit or git
Set DiffScope as TortoiseGit’s external diff viewer and merge tool, or as git’s difftool and mergetool. Or open it on its own and drop two files on the Home screen.
- TortoiseGit Diff Viewer and Merge Tool (External) with pane titles from
%bname,%yname… git difftool,git difftool -dfor whole change sets, andgit mergetool- Honest exit codes, so
trustExitCode = trueworks as intended - Accepts Beyond Compare switches, so existing configs usually only need a new exe path
- Drag and drop two files or folders anywhere in the window
git config
git config --global merge.tool diffscope
git config --global mergetool.diffscope.trustExitCode truePrivacy & quality
Your code stays on your machine. Your merges stay correct.
The app makes no network connections at all: no telemetry, no update pings, no account. And because a diff tool you can’t trust is worse than none, every release is tested against git itself.
Private by design
Nothing phones home and nothing needs the internet. It runs the same on an air-gapped build machine as on your laptop.
No telemetryNo network connectionsNo accountWorks offline
Portable
A zip, not an installer. Unzip anywhere and run DiffScope.exe. No admin rights; delete the folder to remove it.
740
Unit tests
Diff, merge, encodings, folder scans, CLI parsing and integration scripts.
46
End-to-end tests
The real Electron app driven through text, merge, folder and hex views and their exit codes.
20,000+
Fuzz cases
Randomized inputs, cross-checked byte for byte against git diff and git merge-file.
Checklist
Everything in version 1.0
Every item below ships in the current release. What’s next is on the roadmap.
| Feature | 1.0 |
|---|---|
| Text compare | |
| Side-by-side two-pane diff with line numbersChanged, added and removed lines aligned with filler rows | |
| Word-level highlighting inside changed lines | |
| Ignore whitespace, case and blank linesWhitespace: all, changes only, or leading/trailing | |
| Edit in place, copy blocks left / rightAlt+← / Alt+→, double-click a line to edit | |
| Undo and redo across both panes | |
| Encoding and line endings preserved on saveUTF-8, UTF-8 BOM, UTF-16 LE/BE, Latin-1; CRLF / LF / CR | |
| Notice when only encoding or line endings differ | |
| Differences overview map | |
| Virtualized rendering for 200k-line files | |
Read-only panes and custom pane titles/readonly, /leftreadonly, /rightreadonly, /title1..4 | |
| Unsaved-changes prompt on close | |
| 3-way merge | |
| Mine, Base and Theirs panes above an output pane | |
Automatic merge of non-conflicting changesSame semantics as git merge-file | |
| Take Mine, Theirs, Mine + Theirs, Theirs + Mine or Base | |
| Shift+click to resolve all remaining conflicts one way | |
| Conflict counter, next / previous unresolved conflict | |
| Save with git-style conflict markers | |
| Exit code 0 only when saved with no conflicts left | |
| Folder compare | |
| Recursive compare by content, size, or size + date | |
Exclude globsFor example .git; node_modules; *.o | |
| Filters: all, differences, same, orphans | |
| Tree view with expand / collapse all and status counts | |
| Double-click a pair to open it | |
| Hex compare | |
| Streaming compare of 100 MB+ files | |
| Differences in hex and ASCII columns | |
| Next / previous difference and go to offset | |
| Automatic binary detection | |
| Command line | |
Headless unified diff, merge and folder report--headless, --merge, --folder, --diff3, -U N | |
| Exit codes 0 / 1 / 2 | |
| TortoiseGit, GNU and Beyond Compare argument styles | |
Text, hex or folder mode detected automaticallyOr forced with --text, --hex, --folder | |
| Integration | |
| TortoiseGit external Diff Viewer and Merge Tool | |
git difftool (including -d) and git mergetool | |
| Drag and drop files or folders | |
| App & privacy | |
| Dark and light themes | |
| Keyboard navigationF7, Shift+F7, Alt+arrows, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | |
| Portable zip, no installer, no admin rights | |
| No telemetry, no network connections, no account | |
Try it on your next diff.
Free, portable and private. Ready in about a minute.