Use diff to Compare Directories

We can use diff to compare two directories in terminal.

diff [dir_1] [dir_2]

To make it recursive, use the -r option:

diff -r [dir_1] [dir_2]

To get less verbose output, use -q option:

diff -rq [dir_1] [dir_2]

I also find it useful to pipe the output to a text file:

diff -rq [dir_1] [dir_2] > ~/Desktop/diff_output.txt