In this article, we will see how to install meld on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa). Meld is a free and open source GUI based diff and merge tool used for comparing and merging changes in files, directories, Git repos etc. It provides excellent visual features over traditional diff tool. It provides two- and three- way comparisons of both files and directories. Meld has been designed for developers to review the code changes and understand patches clearly.
It also helps in figuring out lot of other code changes which otherwise would be very difficult to find and proceed. Meld can be easily installed and used on almost all the famous systems such as Windows, Linux and Mac systems. Here we will see the steps to install Meld on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS based systems.
Also Read: How to Install pgAdmin 4 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)
a) You should have a running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Server.
b) You should have sudo or root access to run privileged commands.
c) You should have apt or apt-get utility available in your Server.
Before installing meld in your system, it is a better to first to download and install all the latest available updates from default Ubuntu repo by using sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade command as shown below.
cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
[sudo] password for cyberithub:
Hit:1 https://d3nt0h4h6pmmc4.cloudfront.net/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/flatpak/stable/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:4 https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit:5 https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu focal InRelease
Get:6 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [114 kB]
Get:7 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease [114 kB]
Hit:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gencfsm/ppa/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:9 https://download.sublimetext.com apt/stable/ InRelease
Hit:10 https://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/pgadmin/pgadmin4/apt/focal pgadmin4 InRelease
Hit:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/juju/stable/ubuntu focal InRelease
Get:12 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease [108 kB]
Hit:13 http://ppa.launchpad.net/libreoffice/ppa/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:14 http://ppa.launchpad.net/mojo-maintainers/ppa/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:15 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-toolchain-r/test/ubuntu focal InRelease
Get:16 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [274 kB]
Get:17 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [59.9 kB]
..........................................................
In the next step, you can install meld by using sudo apt install meld command as show below. This will download and install the package from default Ubuntu repo along with all its dependencies.
cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt install meld Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 libgtksourceview-3.0-1 libgtksourceview-3.0-common The following NEW packages will be installed: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 libgtksourceview-3.0-1 libgtksourceview-3.0-common meld 0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded. Need to get 1,003 kB of archives. After this operation, 6,328 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y Get:1 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 libgtksourceview-3.0-common all 3.24.11-2 [276 kB] Get:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 libgtksourceview-3.0-1 amd64 3.24.11-2 [227 kB] Get:3 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 amd64 3.24.11-2 [18.4 kB] Get:4 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 meld all 3.20.2-1ubuntu1 [481 kB] Fetched 1,003 kB in 2s (663 kB/s) Selecting previously unselected package libgtksourceview-3.0-common. (Reading database ... 254685 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../libgtksourceview-3.0-common_3.24.11-2_all.deb ... .............................................................
After successful installation, you can verify the installed files path by using dpkg -L meld command as shown below.
cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ dpkg -L meld
/.
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/meld
/usr/lib
/usr/lib/python3
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/__init__.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/build_helpers.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/conf.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/const.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/diffgrid.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/diffmap.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/dirdiff.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/filediff.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/filemerge.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/filters.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/gutterrendererchunk.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/iohelpers.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/linkmap.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/matchers
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/meld/matchers/__init__.py
...........................................................
After successful installation, you can check the current installed version of meld by using meld --version command as shown below.
After successful installation, you can launch meld from Desktop by navigating to Activities and then search meld in the search box as shown below. Once it appears, click on it to open.
You will see New Comparison window launched as shown below. You can now start comparing files, directories and version control.
Once you are done using meld, you can choose to uninstall it from your system by using sudo apt remove meld command as shown below. But please be careful in running below command in critical systems.
cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt remove meld Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 libgtksourceview-3.0-1 libgtksourceview-3.0-common Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them. The following packages will be REMOVED: meld 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 2 not upgraded. After this operation, 3,012 kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y (Reading database ... 255558 files and directories currently installed.) Removing meld (3.20.2-1ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.6) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.6) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.15-1) ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu3) ...
If you are looking to remove meld along with all its dependencies then you need to use sudo apt remove meld --auto-remove command as shown below.
cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt remove meld --auto-remove Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 libgtksourceview-3.0-1 libgtksourceview-3.0-common meld 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 2 not upgraded. After this operation, 6,328 kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y (Reading database ... 255558 files and directories currently installed.) Removing meld (3.20.2-1ubuntu1) ... Removing gir1.2-gtksource-3.0:amd64 (3.24.11-2) ... Removing libgtksourceview-3.0-1:amd64 (3.24.11-2) ... Removing libgtksourceview-3.0-common (3.24.11-2) ... Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.6) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.6) ... Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.15-1) ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu3) ...
If you are looking to remove application along with all its dependencies and configuration files then you need to use sudo apt purge meld --auto-remove command as shown below.
cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt purge meld --auto-remove Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0* libgtksourceview-3.0-1* libgtksourceview-3.0-common* meld* 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 2 not upgraded. After this operation, 6,328 kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y (Reading database ... 255558 files and directories currently installed.) Removing meld (3.20.2-1ubuntu1) ... Removing gir1.2-gtksource-3.0:amd64 (3.24.11-2) ... Removing libgtksourceview-3.0-1:amd64 (3.24.11-2) ... Removing libgtksourceview-3.0-common (3.24.11-2) ... Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.6) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.6) ... Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.15-1) ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu3) ... (Reading database ... 255121 files and directories currently installed.) Purging configuration files for meld (3.20.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Data centers are popping up everywhere. With the rapid growth of AI, cloud services, streaming…
Our commitment to building a thriving open source community is stronger than ever. We believe…
The clock was ticking: Node.js 18’s upstream End of Life (EOL) The OpenJS Foundation is…
June 25th, 2025 – Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, and Pure Storage, the IT pioneer…
Co-authored with Julie Muzina A year ago, during our Madrid Engineering Sprint, we challenged ourselves…
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 897 for the week of June 15 –…