Settings
Open settings from ABDiff ▸ Settings… (or
⌘,).
Folder Access
By default, the application only has access to the files you drop on
it. However, the git repository is stored in a .git folder
that is usually elsewhere. Therefore if you wish to access Git history
you have to explicitly grant access to the repository folder. If you
have multiple repositories drop a folder which is parent to all of
them.
Note that this application does not collect telemetry of any kind and does not communicate with any backend server. Your files and repository are accessed locally and won’t leave your computer.
Defaults
Defaults apply to new comparison sessions:
- Appearance: Sets light or dark mode independently of the system setting. While respecting each user’s theme preference, we suggest using dark mode if you frequently compare images. See Appearance and Image Inspection.
- Show minimap by default: Opens text comparisons with the minimap visible.
- Use semantic line splitting by default: Decides how
text is split into lines before comparison. Specifically, it removes the
synthetic empty last line that appears when a file ends with
\n, to match diff-style line semantics. This is a view/computation behavior only; it doesn’t modify file contents by itself. - Group highlights across whitespace: When enabled, adjacent changed words separated by one space are highlighted as a single continuous span. When disabled, highlights use strict per-word ranges. This setting only changes presentation.
- Skip diff when files are too different: Avoids expensive text comparisons when files fall below a similarity threshold. Some files diverge so significantly that representing their relationship as a sequence of change operations is no longer meaningful.