Name

       borg-diff - Diff contents of two archives

SYNOPSIS

       borg [common options] diff [options] ARCHIVE1 ARCHIVE2 [PATH...]

DESCRIPTION

       This command finds differences (file contents, metadata) between ARCHIVE1 and ARCHIVE2.

       For more help on include/exclude patterns, see the borg_patterns command output.

OPTIONS

       See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands.

   arguments
       ARCHIVE1
              ARCHIVE1 name

       ARCHIVE2
              ARCHIVE2 name

       PATH   paths of items inside the archives to compare; patterns are supported

   options
       --numeric-ids
              only consider numeric user and group identifiers

       --same-chunker-params
              Override check of chunker parameters.

       --sort Sort the output lines by file path.

       --format FORMAT
              specify format for differences between archives (default: "{change} {path}{NL}")

       --json-lines
              Format output as JSON Lines.

       --content-only
              Only compare differences in content (exclude metadata differences)

   Include/Exclude options
       -e PATTERN, --exclude PATTERN
              exclude paths matching PATTERN

       --exclude-from EXCLUDEFILE
              read exclude patterns from EXCLUDEFILE, one per line

       --pattern PATTERN
              include/exclude paths matching PATTERN

       --patterns-from PATTERNFILE
              read include/exclude patterns from PATTERNFILE, one per line

EXAMPLES

          $ borg diff archive1 archive2
              +17 B      -5 B [-rw-r--r-- -> -rwxr-xr-x] file1
             +135 B    -252 B file2
          added           0 B file4
          removed         0 B file3

          $ borg diff archive1 archive2
          {"path": "file1", "changes": [{"type": "modified", "added": 17, "removed": 5}, {"type": "mode", "old_mode": "-rw-r--r--", "new_mode": "-rwxr-xr-x"}]}
          {"path": "file2", "changes": [{"type": "modified", "added": 135, "removed": 252}]}
          {"path": "file4", "changes": [{"type": "added", "size": 0}]}
          {"path": "file3", "changes": [{"type": "removed", "size": 0}]}

NOTES

   The FORMAT specifier syntax
       The  --format option uses python's format string syntax <https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/string.html#
       formatstrings>.

       Examples:

          $ borg diff --format '{content:30} {path}{NL}' ArchiveFoo ArchiveBar
          modified:  +4.1 kB  -1.0 kB    file-diff
          ...

          # {VAR:<NUMBER} - pad to NUMBER columns left-aligned.
          # {VAR:>NUMBER} - pad to NUMBER columns right-aligned.
          $ borg diff --format '{content:>30} {path}{NL}' ArchiveFoo ArchiveBar
             modified:  +4.1 kB  -1.0 kB file-diff
          ...

       The following keys are always available:

       • NEWLINE: OS dependent line separator

       • NL: alias of NEWLINE

       • NUL: NUL character for creating print0 / xargs -0 like output

       • SPACE: space character

       • TAB: tab character

       • CR: carriage return character

       • LF: line feed character

       Keys available only when showing differences between archives:

       • path: archived file path

       • change: all available changes

       • content: file content change

       • mode: file mode change

       • type: file type change

       • owner: file owner (user/group) change

       • group: file group change

       • user: file user change

       • link: file link change

       • directory: file directory change

       • blkdev: file block device change

       • chrdev: file character device change

       • fifo: file fifo change

       • mtime: file modification time change

       • ctime: file change time change

       • isomtime: file modification time change (ISO 8601)

       • isoctime: file creation time change (ISO 8601)

SEE ALSO

       borg-common(1)

Author

       The Borg Collective

                                                   2025-11-25                                       borg-diff(1)