If you need to go more in depth on files, Beyond Compare can also compare images and text documents, and can even provide side-by-side hex comparisons, which is way more than I need, but will doubtless prove useful to others. For example, the “Align with…” command lets you line up two sub-directories to compare, even if they don’t have the same name. But there are also commands that help when things don’t line up quite right. Plus, you can add filters that exclude certain filename patterns (for example, I frequently set it up to ignore directories that begin with a period, since those hidden files are generally configuration files I didn’t care about).īeyond Compare excels when comparing identical or very similar folder structures, and it offers options for comparing files, folder structure, both, or neither. You can choose to have it show only the files that are missing on one side or the other, or all of the differences in files, or even just the files that are the same. I looked at a handful of other comparison tools and spent a lot of time searching the web, trying to figure out the best way to reconcile lots of old files, and Beyond Compare was the one tool I found continually name-checked-and, as it turns out, for good reason.Įssentially, you can drag any two folders into Beyond Compare’s two panes and have it compare their contents. If you’ve got a need to compare folders, text files, image files-really, anything that can be compared, Beyond Compare is the app you want. Throughout my isolation-induced technology shenanigans, I’ve come across one tool that has proved absolutely critical in scanning through old hard drives: Scooter Software’s Beyond Compare. Note: This story has not been updated for several years. Beyond Compare is the file-comparison tool you need
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