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:
  • Brazilian (PR #3328,#3341)
  • Chinese Simplified (PR #3307,#3331,#3344)
  • French (PR #3312)
  • German (PR #3329)
  • Italian (PR #3335,#3342)
  • Korean (PR #3334)
  • Lithuanian (PR #3308)
  • Russian (PR #3309)
  • Turkish (PR #3333)

Documentation

• Update Italian documentation (PR #3319)

• Update French manual (PR #3325)

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)