In the beginning, after downloading and running WinMerge on your device, click on the File section of the toolbar, then choose "Open" from the drop-down menu that will appear. Alternatively, press Ctrl + O (x) together on the keyboard to display the comparison creation interface. Now select the folders you want to compare, first press the Browse button in the 1st File or Folder field to add the first folder, then do the same in the 2nd File or Folder field to select the other folder you want to compare with the first folder. You can also add a third folder if you want to do a three-way comparison. Anyway, once you are done hit the "Compare" button below and WinMerge will analyze the entire contents of the added folders, so it will take some time depending on the amount of files.
WinMerge compares the contents of both folders and then starts listing the files, highlighting the differences and presenting them to you in a clear and visual way. The first folder will be shown in the tab on the left side and the second folder on the right side. You'll notice that files that are identical or located in both folders are marked "Identical" under the "Comparison result" column, while lost or deleted files in a folder are marked "Grayed" and marked "Left only" or "Right only" to indicate that the file is It is in the left/right folder only. Files in both but modified folders are also highlighted with a yellow background and with the "Folders are different" tag in the "Comparison result" column. The program also displays the last modified date of each file on both folders in the Date on Left and Date on Right columns.
WinMerge provides several options to have folders hold the same files or match two folders together. You can select any file and right-click on it, then choose "Copy" and select Right to Left or Left to Right to copy the same file to the other folder, and even if the same file exists in both folders, the program will rewrite the file again until it becomes identical to the original file . You can also perform a quick comparison between two subfolders to see the differences detected by the program, delete the file from both folders or rename them, and other useful actions to make it easier to manage the contents of two folders at once!
Assuming that you copied the file to the other folder to match it in content, after completing this process, press the F5 key on the keyboard to make a new comparison and make sure that both folders have the same files and that the “Identical” tag appears in front of the folder name. That's all, WinMerge is a great tool and provides a very easy way to see the similarities or differences between two folers without much effort.