Review: Compare files and folders with VisualDiffer (Mac)

If you are building websites, at some point you will want to compare two versions of a file. Or, an entire folder perhaps. For example, earlier today I had to compare the entire folder of a Joomla site with a baseline back-up to see if someone had entered malicious code. That would have been a lot of (boring) work, but VisualDiffer made it a breeze to do the comparison.

VisualDif is extremely easy to use.

VisualDif combines being a powerful with an ease of use that’s often missing from similar products.  To get started, you drag the files (or folders) you’re going to compare to the App, and you click “Show Diff”.

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After the App processes the comparison – which, in our case only took a few seconds – you are presented by a simple to understand results page. Colors indicate if a file is different from it’s counterpart, or if it was new. Colors on the folders make it really easy to find files that are different.

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Example of a comparison. VisualDif detects a changed file in the CSS folder

When you’ve found files that have been changed, you can inspect them using VisualDiffer’s excellent editor – with built-in navigation between differences. In only a few seconds, you’ll see what has been changed, and if needed you can open the file in the text editor of your choice.

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Conclusion

VisualDiffer is a handy little tool, useful for everyone who’s got a need for comparing (lots of) files. This Mac App can be purchased from the App Store for €3,49.

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