Side by Side diffs

[hipstersmoothie]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I'm way better at reading side by side diffs

Describe the solution you'd like

LazyGit can be configured to show side by side diffs

[jesseduffield]

see #161

[jesseduffield]

This has now been implemented. See https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/blob/master/docs/Custom_Pagers.md

If anybody would like to see changes to the feature, let me know :) closing

[haydenflinner]

Is there a minimal example of how to get side by side diffs from this custom pager support? from the pictures it looks like ydiff will do the trick, is that the best option?

Edit found this from reddit:

cargo install git-delta
# Put this in ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml
git: 
    paging:
        colorArg: always
        pager: delta --dark --paging=never --syntax-theme base16-256 -s

[iklobato]

For those who are new at lazygit, here is the step by step to make it show git diff side by side

1. Install git delta

$ brew install git-delta

2. Open the configuration file

Linux: ~/.config/lazygit/config.yml
MacOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/lazygit/config.yml
Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\lazygit\config.yml (default location, but it will also be found in %APPDATA%\lazygit\config.yml

or

Linux: ~/.config/jesseduffield/lazygit/config.yml
MacOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/jesseduffield/lazygit/config.yml
Windows: %APPDATA%\jesseduffield\lazygit\config.yml

3. Add the snipper from @haydenflinner

git: 
    paging:
        colorArg: always
        pager: delta --dark --paging=never --syntax-theme base16-256 -s

4. Close and reopen lazygit

[dhupee]

For those who used NixOS, you can use example from my dotfiles https://github.com/dhupee/dotfiles/blob/master/private_dot_nix-configs/modules/home-manager/git.nix

I reference @ iklobato comment and applied that in NixOS, great job

[hk0i]

@iklobato what about when we go into a single file to stage changes? mine doesn't appear to be using the custom pager for that.
I mainly want the syntax highlighting from delta:

[hk0i]

never mind looks like that's not possible, according to #1335 (reply in thread)

[stefanhaller]

@hk0i Some work on this has been started in #4332, but it is nowhere near finished.

[0qln]

For those who used NixOS, you can use example from my dotfiles https://github.com/dhupee/dotfiles/blob/master/private_dot_nix-configs/modules/home-manager/git.nix

I reference @ iklobato comment and applied that in NixOS, great job

Much love, but the link is broken. FYI, github has a feature called 'perma links'. they don't break and can be viewed any time, even if the file is removed in later commits (*°∀°)=3

[Blankeos]

Thanks for the step by step @iklobato , this is super great for me already.

Any chance this can be interactive as well or is it just purely for viewing? I basically kinda wanna copy either the entire left side or right side.

[iklobato]

Hi @Blankeos,
In this configuration, I haven’t found a way to enable editing on both sides. However, when we press e, it opens the most recent change so we can work on that file but only on the right side.

Screen.Recording.2025-11-04.at.18.09.08.mov

[Blankeos]

@iklobato Cool, I did something clever which is to make my own "copy" because y already almost fulfills this actually. Unfortunately, I cannot pass context: "files" into this customCommand, so it's just literally a global menu (referencing this doc). But you can at least add contexts in the commandMenu items.

It's this command that copies the left side of the diff:

git show HEAD:{{.SelectedFile.Name | quote}} | pbcopy

These were the extra configs I added:

customCommands:
  - key: "Y"
    description: "Custom copy: old content"
    commandMenu:
      - key: "o"
        command: "git show HEAD:{{.SelectedFile.Name}} | pbcopy"
        context: "files"
        description: "Old file content (HEAD) (left diff)"
      - key: "o"
        command: "git show {{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}^:{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}} | pbcopy"
        context: "commitFiles"
        description: "Copy old file content (left diff)"
      - key: "c"
        command: "git show {{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}:{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}} | pbcopy"
        context: "commitFiles"
        description: "Copy file content from this commit (right diff)"
  - key: "O"
    description: "Custom open: git show to temp and zed"
    commandMenu:
      - key: "o"
        command: 'open_dest="/tmp/lazy/{{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}_{{.SelectedFile.Name}}" && mkdir -p "$(dirname "$open_dest")" && git show HEAD:{{.SelectedFile.Name}} > "$open_dest" && zed --wait "$open_dest"'
        context: "files"
        description: "Open old file content in zed (HEAD) (left diff)"
      - key: "o"
        command: 'open_dest="/tmp/lazy/{{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}_{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}}" && mkdir -p "$(dirname "$open_dest")" && git show {{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}^:{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}} > "$open_dest" && zed --wait "$open_dest"'
        context: "commitFiles"
        description: "Open old file content in zed (left diff)"
      - key: "c"
        command: 'open_dest="/tmp/lazy/{{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}_{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}}" && mkdir -p "$(dirname "$open_dest")" && git show {{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}:{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}} > "$open_dest" && zed --wait "$open_dest"'
        context: "commitFiles"
        description: "Open file content from this commit in zed (right diff)"
      - key: "h"
        command: 'open_dest="/tmp/lazy/{{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}_{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}}" && mkdir -p "$(dirname "$open_dest")" && git show {{.SelectedCommit.Sha}}:{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}} > "$open_dest" && zed --diff "$open_dest" "{{.SelectedCommitFile.Name}}"'
        context: "commitFiles"
        description: "Compare file content with HEAD in zed (Note: only works if same name)"

This is actually perfect. Works for both viewing older commits, and just the current files.