WinMerge 2.16.58 Release Notes

• About This Release
• What Is New in 2.16.58?
• What Is New in 2.16.57 Beta?
• Known issues

July 2026

About This Release

This is a WinMerge 2.16.58 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 2.16.58?

File compare

• BugFix: Crash (Access Violation) when file changes externally over a given threshold (#3456, PR #3457)

• BugFix: Parts of the panes become black text on a black background after copying changes in 3-way merge mode (#3468, #3469)

Folder compare

• BugFix: Fix archive vs folder comparison selecting the wrong source (#3449, PR #3458)

• BugFix: Fix HICON resource leaks in image list initialization

Select files or folders dialog

• BugFix: Handle exceptions raised while creating the common file dialog (#3462, PR #3464)

• BugFix: Fix MRU handling for three-way comparisons. (#3452)

File Compare Report

• Add support for generating a single HTML report from multiple file comparisons (PR #3450)

Patch Generation

• Add a file list with checkboxes to the Generate Patch dialog (PR #3470)

Archive Generation

• Add support for creating comparison archives (PR #3483)

Command line

• Add /g command line option for single-instance groups (PR #3472)

Translations

• Translation updates:

  • Brazilian (PR #3459, PR #3476, PR #3489)
  • Chinese Simplified (PR #3460, PR #3479)
  • French (PR #3478, PR #3491)
  • German (PR #3480, PR #3486)
  • Italian (PR #3455, PR #3473, PR #3477, PR #3488)
  • Japanese
  • Korean (PR #3447, PR #3481, PR #3487)
  • Lithuanian (PR #3461, PR #3471, PR #3492)
  • Polish (PR #3463, PR #3490)
  • Turkish (PR #3465, PR #3474)
  • Russian (PR #3448, PR #3484)

What Is New in 2.16.57 Beta?

General

• BugFix: Fixed an issue where file mapping failures could incorrectly trigger a crash (#3412)

• Add module-relative offsets to crash log stack traces

File compare

• BugFix: Avoid crash (issue #3402) by using GetFullLineLength() to avoid accessing line EOL directly

• BugFix: Fix incorrect caret position in status bar

• BugFix: Clear sync points before reloading compare files

• BugFix: Fix assertion failure on empty buffer access when all lines are deleted from a pane

• Add display line filter bar for file compare window (PR #3374)

• Improve syntax highlighting with Tree-sitter integration for better support of multiple languages (PR #3306, PR #3337, PR #3338, PR #3350, PR #3415, PR #3427, PR #3440)

• Refactor syntax parsing behind ISyntaxParser interface (PR #3415)

Folder compare

• BugFix: Crash when trying to delete a "left-only" or "right-only" file during renaming (#3411)

• BugFix: ZIP export includes unchanged files in subfolders (#3444, PR#3445)

• Refactor filter evaluation parameters with new EvalContext for better code maintainability (PR #3353)

Archive support

• BugFix: Fix error dialogs when comparing two Rar4 files (#3392)

• Update 7-Zip to 26.02

Select Files or Folders dialog

• Add support for clipboard URL comparison and clipboard history menu (PR #3352)

Plugins

• Add HandleSchemeClipboard plugin (PR #3352)

Project files

• Warn user before opening project files containing plugin arguments for security reasons (PR #3397, #3396)

Translations

• Translation updates:

  • Brazilian (PR #3431)
  • Chinese Simplified (PR #3429, PR #3438)
  • Chinese Traditional (PR #3426)
  • Corsican (PR #3420)
  • French (PR #3393, PR #3406, PR #3408, PR #3435)
  • German (PR #3432)
  • Italian (PR #3399, PR #3434, PR #3446)
  • Korean (PR #3422, PR #3433)
  • Lithuanian (PR #3405, PR #3439)
  • Polish (PR #3418, PR #3430)
  • Portuguese (PR #3391, PR #3414)
  • Russian (PR #3395, PR #3428)
  • Spanish (PR #3421, PR #3423, PR #3424, PR #3425)
  • Turkish (PR #3403, PR #3436)

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)