Release notes, system requirements, & downloads

Araxis Merge 2026.0 19 June 2026

This release features a beautiful UI redesign for macOS and first-class support for macOS 26 Tahoe. The macOS 27 Golden Gate Developer Beta 1 also receives preliminary support. The presentation of comparison results on macOS is significantly enhanced, making it easier than ever to see and understand changes in their full context. Various other improvements and fixes for Windows and macOS are also included. Please read the release notes below for a complete list of changes.

We plan to bring many of the macOS UI refinements from this release to Merge for Windows in future versions.

This is the current production-quality release that Araxis recommends for all users.

This release is available at no extra cost to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below. This includes everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.

System requirements

Merge 2026.0 appears to be fully functional on macOS 27 Golden Gate Developer Beta 1, though macOS Golden Gate is not yet a fully supported platform. We are working to provide complete support for macOS Golden Gate following its general availability.

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

• Windows 11 25H2 AMD/Intel
• Windows 11 24H2 AMD/Intel
• Windows 10 22H2 64-bit AMD/Intel
• macOS 26.5.1 Tahoe Apple silicon and Intel
• macOS 15.7.7 Sequoia Apple silicon and Intel
• macOS 14.8.7 Sonoma Apple silicon and Intel

The following platforms are supported and expected to work, though they are not routinely tested:

• Windows Server 2025 AMD/Intel
• Windows Server 2022 AMD/Intel
• Windows Server 2019 AMD/Intel

Enhancements

• macOS Merge for macOS is fully supported, optimized, and tested on macOS 26 Tahoe. Support for macOS Tahoe replaces that for macOS 13 Ventura. #7097

• macOS Merge for macOS now provides preliminary support for macOS 27 Golden Gate Developer Beta 1. Please note that macOS Golden Gate is still undergoing development and is not yet of production quality. #7236

• macOS Merge for macOS has a beautiful new design that harmonizes perfectly with macOS Golden Gate, Tahoe, Sequoia, and Sonoma. #7097

  • Windows, tabs, comparison panes, file/folder entry fields, and dialogs have all been modernized with rounded corners, refined spacing, and Tahoe-aware sizing and positioning.
  • Subtly translucent background materials are adopted throughout. Translucency has been carefully calibrated to preserve contrast and readability while still enabling Merge to harmonize with macOS window tinting and the desktop wallpaper. Opaque backgrounds are used when the macOS Reduce transparency accessibility setting is enabled.
  • Window tinting in dark mode is fully integrated for the first time.
  • Toolbars adopt the modern design on macOS Golden Gate and Tahoe, keeping their native appearance on Sequoia and Sonoma.
  • Visual clutter is reduced by eliminating borders around comparison panes, entry fields, and the tab strip. In the absence of borders, keyboard focus in comparisons is indicated by slightly dimming non-focused elements.
  • The large corner radius of macOS Tahoe windows is carefully accommodated without clipping or reducing the space available for displaying comparisons.
  • Linking lines in text and binary comparisons take on a slight tint of the background colour, adapting to window tinting and background translucency; contrast is automatically adjusted to ensure visibility.
  • Information and alert dialogs use the new macOS Tahoe sheet style.
  • The application icon fully supports Liquid Glass accents and macOS Tahoe icon themes.
  • We added 32-pixel-square icons for the settings dialog pages for macOS Tahoe and Golden Gate. (Older versions of macOS still require 30-pixel-square icons.)
  • Information panels within comparison panes have been recoloured to comport with translucency and window tinting.

• macOS The presentation of comparison results is significantly clearer and less cluttered. #7097 #7151 #7152 #7156 #7160 #7161 #7209

  • The backgrounds of inserted/removed/changed text blocks are drawn using a translucent version of the relevant inserted/removed/changed background colour. This emphasizes each text block, makes its boundaries clear, and draws attention to smaller changes that might otherwise go unnoticed. A new Inserted/removed/changed-block background opacity slider adjusts the relative intensity of the block backgrounds. Those backgrounds can be fully transparent to give an appearance similar to earlier versions of Merge.
  • Text comparison change blocks show per-line background colours. Inserted or removed lines inside a larger changed block use the appropriate insertion or removal background colour. Modified lines use the changed-block background colour. This per-line background colouring often makes it much easier to match individual lines across files.
  • Markers within lines that show the points where text has been inserted or removed in the related file now have a much greater contrast.
  • Text comparison inserted/removed/changed blocks extend slightly into the linking-lines panel, filling the area within the linking-line bracket. This reduces clutter because there is no longer a boundary within each block at the edge of the comparison pane, and there is no longer a separate background colour within the linking-line bracket. This change helps identify each text block and its relationship with the other file or files.
  • Linking lines continue to show exactly how text blocks relate across files.
  • As the ability to disable the linking lines that extend across the file panes is no longer relevant, the little-used Extend linking lines across documents setting has been removed.
  • New default inserted/removed/changed colours are provided for both light and dark mode, optimized for the new design. When upgrading or importing settings from an older version of Merge, these new defaults will overwrite old colours as a one-time upgrade.

• macOS Configuration of comparison colours is much easier. #7097 #7160

  • Folder comparisons derive the colours of inserted/removed/changed rows from the equivalent file comparison colours. A single Inserted/removed/changed-row background opacity slider adjusts folder comparison colour intensity.
  • Overview strip marks intelligently derive their colours from the file comparison inserted/changed/removed background colours.
  • Together, these changes mean that comparisons are customized with a single set of colours rather than the three required previously.

• macOS The unchanged text background colour is no longer configurable in dark mode. This is necessary to support macOS window tinting because the comparison panel background needs to be drawn with specific macOS materials rather than a fixed, solid colour. #7097

• macOS In split-view folder comparisons, most of the area between the folder comparison and the file comparison is now draggable to change the relative sizes of the two comparison areas. This makes resizing much easier than before. #7097

• macOS The linking-lines colour is now configured as a hue, rather than an absolute colour. This is because it is programmatically adjusted so that linking lines can participate in window tinting and translucency. (This constraint arises from macOS limitations in how colours can be composited against certain display materials.) #7097

• macOS We have improved the operation of the Previous Conflict and Next Conflict commands in three-way text comparisons. Conflict navigation now occurs solely in the middle pane, stepping through each conflict in turn. This eliminates the need to step through conflicts in each pane separately. Each conflict is also vertically centred when targeted. #7165

• macOS Merge now centres the first conflict and gives the middle panel focus when using the Merge to Common Ancestor command. #7164

• macOS Split-view folder comparisons give more initial space to the file comparison. This default better aligns with Merge for Windows, matching the common workflow of selecting a folder-comparison row and then inspecting the corresponding file changes in detail. #7149

• Windows macOS The binary-comparison Search size control is renamed Effort to better reflect its purpose. It now accepts values from 1 to 9999 on both platforms. The new default of 5 drastically improves the baseline performance of large binary comparisons with many changes on Windows. For more information, please read the updated documentation: Windows, macOS. #7123

• Windows Merge for Windows now remembers the value of the Effort setting across binary comparisons, aligning its behaviour with Merge for macOS. #7123

• macOS The algorithm used for binary comparisons has been updated to that used by Merge for Windows. This should improve performance with very large files. #7123

• macOS In binary comparisons, the status line has been combined with the control strip. This increases the amount of space available for comparison content. #7097 #7222

• Windows macOS After a fresh installation or a settings reset, Merge now defaults to comparing XML files using a normal text comparison, rather than a Text XML/XHTML comparison as before. For more information about comparing XML files, please read the documentation: Windows, macOS. #7233

• macOS The pointer adopts a move up/down shape when over a synchronization-link arrowhead. This clearly indicates that the synchronization link can be repositioned by dragging. #7154

• macOS We have slightly increased the font size used for image and binary comparison controls. #7222

• macOS In light mode, a darker green colour is used to improve the readability of valid serial numbers in the Araxis Merge Registration dialog. #7097

• macOS All the macOS screenshots have been retaken. #6167

• Windows macOS We undertook various chores to improve the build system and to provide compatibility with the latest versions of Microsoft Visual Studio, Apple Xcode, and third-party dependencies. #7122 #7174 #7179

• macOS We updated the Araxis Merge application bundle CFBundleDevelopmentRegion metadata to use an ISO 639-1 language code. #7195

• Windows macOS We updated the major product version number and copyright notices for 2026. #7142

Changes

• Windows We removed the previously deprecated .NET assembly due to continued changes in the .NET platform. The assembly was deprecated in Merge 2024.6001 for Windows in favour of the much more widely used Automation API. Customers who still require the .NET assembly can continue to use it from an older Merge release of their choice. #7126

Defects fixed

• Windows macOS Linking-line brackets in text comparisons are no longer missing when both Intelligently split blocks of changed text based on matched line pairs and Consecutively (working downwards from the top of the block) are enabled. #7216

• macOS Three-way text and binary comparisons now render linking lines correctly for change blocks that begin right at the bottom of the left or right pane. #7244

• macOS On macOS Tahoe, the confirmation dialog that appears when deleting files from a folder comparison context menu no longer becomes unresponsive to mouse or trackpad input. #7145

• macOS AppleScript/OSA API folder comparisons can no longer crash when a script closes the comparison immediately after it completes. #7196

• macOS In a three-way text comparison with line-wrapping enabled, text is no longer unexpectedly selected when using the Previous Change in Comparison or Next Change in Comparison toolbar buttons, or the Previous change in pane or Next change in pane scrollbar buttons. #7200

• macOS We have properly aligned the Configure… button on the HTML and XML pages of the folder comparison report dialog. #7203

• macOS We have addressed several folder-comparison rendering issues specific to macOS Tahoe. In addition, we fixed a problem where folder comparisons could be scrolled a small horizontal distance on macOS Tahoe. #7178

• macOS The mouse pointer now properly assumes its arrow shape when it is over the vertical scrollbar in the centre pane of a text or binary comparison. #7131

• macOS We fixed a CGContextSetFillColorWithColor: invalid context diagnostic that appeared in Xcode when opening certain text files. #7092

Software bill of materials

• This release includes the following dependencies, with updates indicated: #7111 #7143

  Platform	Dependency	Version (Previous → 2026.0)
  Windows macOS	Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK JRE (subset)	21.0.7+6 → 25.0.2+10
  Windows macOS	Apache Commons Collections library	4.4 → 4.5.0
  Windows macOS	Apache Commons Compress library	1.27.1 → 1.28.0
  Windows macOS	Apache Commons IO library	2.18.0 → 2.21.0
  Windows macOS	Apache Commons Lang library (new dependency)	3.18.0
  Windows macOS	Apache Commons Logging library	1.3.5
  Windows macOS	Apache Log4j API library	2.24.3
  Windows macOS	Apache PDFBox, FontBox, and PDFBox IO libraries	3.0.5 → 3.0.7
  Windows macOS	Apache POI libraries	5.4.1 → 5.5.1
  Windows macOS	Apache XMLBeans library	5.3.0
  Windows macOS	Boost C++ Libraries (subset)	1.77.0 → 1.90.0
  Windows macOS	Compile time regular expressions library	3.10.0
  Windows macOS	Crypto++ library (subset)	Source fork of 5.2.1
  Windows macOS	JDOM library	2.0.6.1
  Windows macOS	jsoup library	1.21.1 → 1.22.1
  Windows	libarchive library	3.7.7 → 3.8.7
  Windows	libbzip2 library	1.0.8
  Windows	liblzma library from XZ Utils	5.8.1 → 5.8.3
  Windows	libpng library	1.6.47 → 1.6.57
  Windows	Microsoft.Windows.CppWinRT package	2.0.250303.1
  Windows macOS	RTF Parser Kit library	1.16.0
  Windows macOS	Scintilla text editing component (subset)	Source fork
  Windows macOS	SparseBitSet library	1.3
  Windows	Universal Ctags	Source fork
  Windows macOS	zlib library	1.3.1 → 1.3.2

• We updated the following release-significant tool versions: #7143 #7179

  Platform	Dependency	Version (Previous → 2026.0)
  macOS	Apple Xcode	16.4 → 26.5
  Windows	Microsoft.Trusted.Signing.Client package	1.0.86 → 1.0.95
  Windows	Microsoft Visual Studio	17.14.9 → 17.14.33

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