Have you ever had a situation where you must compare the contents of two directories? When attempting an off-site backup it’s logically beneficial to ensure the copy does in fact contain all the files from the original destination. If you are lucky, you are using backup software that handles some of this file management for you behind the scenes. Unfortunately, sometimes the software isn’t flexible enough or otherwise insufficient for the task in hand. At which point you are left with a rather primitive option – right-click, choose Properties, and compare the resulting number of files and file size. Fantastic when the results match between the two directories, but what then if they do not? You have no way of knowing where the difference lies.

TreeCompare is a free Windows utility that can unearth the subtle differences between two seemingly identical directory tree structures. Comparisons can be made across a myriad of options include modification time, file size, or specific file attributes such as hidden or read-only.

Usage is as straight-forward as possible. Provide pathing information to the location of both directories you wish to compare and set what Options you wish to compare for. Then kick-start the entire process by clicking Compare. Within a few minutes, depending on the number of files and the options selected, TreeCompare will return a summary of the results. Within the application window itself you will see why and how each file was identified as different.

TreeCompare does one function efficiently and easily but I’d still like to see a manner to address the problem of discrepancies from within the application itself. As it stands today, TreeCompare only displays the results of it’s scan – it’s up to you how to correct the anomalies.

Download TreeCompare