snapdiff

Snapshot and diff any directory tree over time — no git repo required.

snapdiff solves a simple problem: git only tracks changes inside a repo, but you constantly need to know "what changed in this folder since last week" for things that aren't (and shouldn't be) version controlled — config directories, Dropbox syncs, build output, scraped datasets, client deliverables, downloads folders.

Take a snapshot. Keep working. Compare later. See exactly what was added, removed, or modified.

Install

git clone https://github.com/ohmfaruk/snapdiff.git
cd snapdiff
pip install -e .

Usage

Take a snapshot:

snapdiff snap ~/Documents/configs --name before-cleanup

Do your thing. Edit files, delete files, add files — whatever.

Compare against the snapshot:

snapdiff compare ~/Documents/configs before-cleanup

Comparing '~/Documents/configs' against snapshot 'before-cleanup' (taken 2026-06-21T19:17:35)

  + added     new-config.yaml
  - removed   old-config.yaml
  ~ modified  settings.json

Summary: 1 added, 1 removed, 1 modified.

Renamed files are detected automatically — if a file's content hash matches an old hash under a different path, it's reported as a rename, not a separate add+delete:

> renamed   old_name.txt -> new_name.txt

Export the diff as Markdown — handy for pasting into a PR description, daily log, or sharing with a team:

snapdiff compare ~/Documents/configs before-cleanup --markdown report.md

List all saved snapshots:

snapdiff list

How it works

Each snapshot walks the target directory and records a SHA-256 hash, size, and modification time for every file, keyed by its relative path. Snapshots are stored as portable JSON in ~/.snapdiff/. Comparing re-walks the live directory and diffs the current file set against the saved one — additions, deletions, and content changes are all detected via hash comparison, so renames/edits are caught even if mtime is unreliable (e.g. after a file copy).

Options

Flag	Description
--name	Label for the snapshot (used in snap)
--ignore	Additional filenames/dirs to exclude, beyond the defaults (.git, __pycache__, node_modules, .DS_Store, Thumbs.db)

Why not just use git?

Git requires a repo, tracks history you may not want, and isn't designed for ad-hoc "point A vs point B" comparisons of arbitrary folders. snapdiff is zero-config, dependency-free, and disposable — snapshot anything, anytime, no setup.

License

MIT