Changelo
English
Changelo

What changed?

Changelo compares two files — or two whole folders — and answers in plain language instead of showing you a wall of technical diff.

Download for iPhone and iPad Download for Mac

Or download the .dmg directly — it includes the command-line tool.

Fully offline. No accounts, no servers, no analytics.

Answers, not diffs

This is what Changelo actually tells you:

  • Only the photo's metadata changed — the image itself is untouched.
  • One page was added and two paragraphs were edited.
  • Probably a new build of the app: the version increased and two localizations were added.
  • The data is identical — the file was merely re-saved.

How it works

  1. Drop two versions

    Drag any two files or folders into the app, pick them from Files or Finder, or start a comparison straight from the Finder context menu.

  2. Read the answer

    Within seconds you get a verdict in plain language, the reasons behind it, and a searchable list of every change.

  3. Dig in when you want

    The visual, side-by-side diff is always one tap away — text, images, folder trees, tables, PDF pages — but it never gets in your way.

Smart, not magic

Every answer comes from deterministic, verifiable analysis — no AI guessing. When a conclusion is a heuristic, Changelo says so: verdicts are labeled Certain, Likely or Possible.

It understands your files

Changelo doesn't compare bytes — it understands formats. A PDF is pages, paragraphs and annotations. A photo is pixels, EXIF and a color profile. A folder is a tree of files. An app is versions, frameworks and localizations.

Text and documents

Plain text, Markdown, PDF

Paragraph, sentence and word level comparison, tuned for readability rather than raw line diffs.

Structured data

JSON, plist, XML, YAML, CSV

Keys, values and rows are compared structurally, so re-formatting is never mistaken for a real change.

Images

JPEG, PNG, HEIC and more

Dimensions, EXIF, ICC profile, perceptual hash, histogram and SSIM — so "re-saved" and "edited" are told apart.

Folders and archives

Folders, ZIP

Added, removed, modified and renamed items, with renames detected by content rather than by name.

Databases and apps

SQLite, .app, .ipa, disk images

Schema and rows for databases; versions, frameworks, localizations and entitlements for app bundles.

Video

QuickTime (MOV)

Duration, tracks, codecs and metadata, plus sampled frames to tell a re-encode from a real edit.

Compare straight from Finder

On macOS you can start a comparison straight from Finder, without opening the app first.

Using it

  • Right-click a file and choose Open With → Changelo.
  • Do the same with the second file — Changelo compares them as soon as it has both. Select both at once and one trip through the menu is enough.

Finder opens the files itself, and that is what gives the sandboxed app access to exactly those items and nothing else.

Or from the terminal

The version you download from this page also brings a command-line tool. The App Store version cannot: everything inside a sandboxed app has to be sandboxed too, and a sandboxed tool cannot open the files you name on the command line.

Link it once so your shell can find it:

sudo ln -s /Applications/Changelo.app/Contents/Helpers/changelo /usr/local/bin/changelo

Then hand it the two items to compare:

changelo before.txt after.txt

It prints the same answer as the app and exits 0 when the items are identical, 1 when they differ — so it drops straight into a shell script or a CI job.

Truly private

Changelo is built to be provably offline.

  • No network access at all — the app never connects anywhere.
  • No accounts, no sign-in, no cloud storage.
  • No analytics, no tracking and no third-party SDKs inside the app.
  • No encryption is used: your files are read as they are and never leave your device.