Both types of licenses include the same features and allow installation on any number of computers per a license, but Personal license is restricted to non-commercial or educational use, only whereas Professional / Business license includes all types of use, including enterprise, professional and managed IT, non-profit and government use, plus priority technical and maintenance support.
In other words, if you plan to use WinCatalog at home, it is enough to buy a personal license. But if you want to use it at work or for your business, you should buy a professional license.
Posted on: December 26, 2014
Hello, we are pleased to announce the release of WinCatalog 2024.16, bringing new productivity features, improved search functionality, and enhanced system reliability.
New Keyboard Shortcuts for Tab Management
Working with multiple tabs is now more convenient with newly added keyboard shortcuts. Press CTRL+W or CTRL+F4 to close the current tab, CTRL+SHIFT+W or CTRL+SHIFT+F4 to close all tabs at once (except the last main tab), and CTRL+T to open a new Catalog tab. These shortcuts align with common browser conventions, making tab navigation more intuitive and efficient.
Fixed Search Syntax with Parentheses
We’ve resolved an issue where the AND operator was missing after closing round brackets in search queries. Previously, queries like “(.jpg OR .png) mountain” would produce a syntax error. Now they are interpreted correctly as “(.jpg OR .png) AND mountain”. Just and example: this query allows you to find all files with .jpg or .png extensions that contain the word “mountain” in the filename or comments. TThe new fix makes complex search queries more straightforward and predictable.
Improved Reliability After Sleep Mode
When your computer resumes from sleep mode, WinCatalog needs to re-open (or re-connect) the catalog file. It now performs 5 reconnection attempts to access the catalog file. This enhancement is particularly helpful if your catalog file is located on slow, external, or network drives that may take longer to become available after the system wakes up.
Extended Long Path Support
Building on the long path support introduced in version 2024.15, all internal components now fully support paths exceeding 260 characters across different Windows versions. This ensures consistent behavior regardless of your Windows configuration and provides complete coverage for deep folder structures throughout the application. Please note, that some external apps (like picture viewers, text editors, or media players) may still not support long paths, but WinCatalog does.
User Interface Improvements
Fixed Scanning Options Window: We’ve resolved an issue where the ScanningOptions window could occasionally fail to appear and block the main window, creating the impression that the application had frozen.
Accurate File Count Display: The file count on the General Property page now displays correctly, ensuring accurate statistics for your cataloged items.
Enhanced Converter and Translations
The WhereIsIt to WinCatalog converter has been updated to improve compatibility and data migration accuracy. Additionally, Korean and Romanian translations have been updated, providing better localization for users of these languages.
New Hidden Option
A new hidden option has been added to skip the check for whether a drive or folder already exists in the catalog. This advanced option is useful for specific workflows. Contact our support team if you need to enable it.
New Upgrade Status Check
The “New Version Available” dialog now includes an option to check your upgrade eligibility status, making it easier to determine whether you’re eligible for the latest updates.
Other Minor Improvements
This update also includes various under-the-hood optimizations and stability enhancements to make WinCatalog even more reliable.
As always, we recommend installing the update to benefit from the latest improvements. Click here to download the latest version.
There is no need to uninstall your current version — just install the update over your existing installation. If you’re not yet a WinCatalog user, feel free to try our free trial and explore all the features.
Thank you for using WinCatalog!
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: November 24, 2025
Hello, we are pleased to announce the release of WinCatalog 2024.15, bringing improvements to scanning reliability, long path support, and overall system stability.
Enhanced Scanning Stability
The stability of interaction with system components like File Explorer has been significantly improved. WinCatalog now handles system-level operations more reliably, reducing potential conflicts and ensuring smoother cataloging operations even during intensive scanning sessions.
More Robust MediaInfo Processing
The MediaInfo module has been strengthened to handle incorrect shell thumbnails correctly (if the option to grab system thumbnails is selected). This improvement ensures that WinCatalog can accurately extract and display media information even when encountering problematic or malformed thumbnail data, preventing potential scanning interruptions.
Long Path Support
WinCatalog can now fully work with files where the path contains more than 260 characters, overcoming the traditional Windows path length limitation. This includes adding such files to your catalog, calculating checksums and hashes, and running all processing modules correctly. If you have deep folder structures or long file names, they will now be cataloged without any issues.
User Interface Enhancements
Comments Field Improvements: The Comments fields in the Properties Panel now adapt their font size according to the current Zoom value, ensuring better readability at any zoom level. Additionally, these fields can now display emoji, allowing you to use visual markers and expressions in your file comments.
Search Index Partial Updates
The search index can now be partially updated when external tools are used, such as the Text2Wcat Utility or the WhereIsIt to WinCatalog Converter Utility. This ensures that your search index remains accurate and synchronized even when catalog modifications are made outside the main application.
Hotkey Processing Fix
We’ve resolved an issue with hotkey handling. WinCatalog now correctly processes user-configured hotkeys first, and then falls back to predefined hotkeys, ensuring that your custom keyboard shortcuts work as expected without conflicts.
Other Minor Improvements
This update also includes various under-the-hood optimizations and stability enhancements to make WinCatalog even more reliable.
As always, we recommend installing the update to benefit from the latest improvements.
There is no need to uninstall your current version — just download and install the update over your existing installation.
If you’re not yet a WinCatalog user, feel free to try our free trial and explore all the features.
Thank you for using WinCatalog!
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: November 14, 2025
Today we celebrate a remarkable milestone — 24 years since WinCatalog first became the trusted disk catalog software for organizing digital collections around the world!
Over these 24 years, we’ve evolved from a simple file organizer into a comprehensive solution that helps thousands of users manage everything from personal photo libraries to massive business archives. What started as a tool for organizing floppy disks and CD collections has grown into powerful disk catalog software capable of indexing terabytes of files across countless external drives, NAS devices, and network locations.
Every feature enhancement, every performance improvement, and every interface refinement has been guided by your invaluable feedback. You’ve helped transform WinCatalog from a basic file organizer into the sophisticated cataloging solution it is today. Your suggestions about search capabilities, metadata handling, and workflow improvements continue to shape our development roadmap.
As we enter our 25th year, we remain committed to keeping WinCatalog at the cutting edge of disk catalog software technology. We’re actively developing new capabilities to help you organize, search, and manage your digital assets even more efficiently. Our focus continues to be on delivering a file organizer that’s both powerful for advanced users and intuitive for newcomers.
Twenty-four years is a testament to your loyalty and trust. Thank you for choosing WinCatalog as your disk catalog software, for sharing your feedback, for recommending us to colleagues and friends, and for being part of our journey. Your support has made every update, every improvement, and every milestone possible.
Here’s to 24 incredible years — and to many more ahead!
Happy birthday, WinCatalog!
With gratitude,
The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: October 14, 2025
We are glad to announce an updated version of the WhereIsIt to WinCatalog Converter, a free utility that helps you transfer your existing catalogs from the discontinued WhereIsIt program into WinCatalog — a modern disk catalog software and the best WhereIsIt alternative for Windows.
The WhereIsIt to WinCatalog Converter was created to make the transition from WhereIsIt to WinCatalog as smooth as possible. It allows you to import your existing WhereIsIt XML exported catalogs directly into WinCatalog, preserving your data and keeping your collections accessible and searchable.
WinCatalog is a powerful disk catalog software solution that lets you organize, search, and browse your files even when the original disks or drives are not connected. For anyone looking for a reliable WhereIsIt alternative, WinCatalog provides a modern interface, regular updates, and advanced features that go far beyond what WhereIsIt offered.
If you’re migrating from WhereIsIt, please follow the step-by-step export instructions here: WhereIsIt Export Instructions
You can download the updated converter here: Download WhereIsIt to WinCatalog Converter
Posted on: September 29, 2025
Hello! We’re excited to announce that a new maintenance update of WinCatalog has been released — version 2024.14.1.
Improved Support for RAR Archives
In addition to listing files and their attributes, WinCatalog can now extract and store comments from RAR archives.
Fixed a Rare Issue in Reports
We resolved a rare issue where reports occasionally displayed “Search Results” instead of the first hard drive’s name. This bug is now fixed.
Accurate Size for Virtual Folders
The size field for virtual folders is now correctly updated after their contents change or update, ensuring accurate folder size information.
Other Minor Improvements
This update also includes various small fixes and enhancements, such as: improved keyboard support in context menus (the Enter key now works as expected), updated UI translations, and other minor UI and performance refinements.
As always, we recommend installing the update to benefit from the latest improvements.
WinCatalog 2024.14.1 Release (July 28, 2025)
Version 2024.14.1 fixes an issue where the Scanning Options window could appear behind the main window, creating the impression that the application had frozen.
There’s no need to uninstall your current version — simply install the update over your existing installation. If you’re new to WinCatalog, you’re welcome to download the free trial and explore all the features.
Thank you for using WinCatalog!
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: July 25, 2025
Hello, we’re glad to announce the release of WinCatalog 2024.12. This update brings several important improvements and fixes to make your cataloging experience smoother and more efficient.
Improved support for multi-part archives
In this version, we’ve fixed the support for multi-part Zip and 7zip archives, along with multi-part RAR archives. We’ve also added .001 and .z01 extensions to the list of default archive extensions. If you have multi-part archives in your catalog, just update the corresponding drive or folder—the contents will now appear correctly in the catalog.
Translation updates
This update includes a major fix for the Greek translation and minor improvements for Korean and Hungarian. Thank you to everyone who helped report and verify the translations!
Updated Office document libraries
The libraries responsible for processing Office documents have been updated to their latest versions, ensuring better compatibility and performance when cataloging Word, Excel, and other Office files.
As always, we recommend installing the update to take advantage of these improvements.
There is no need to uninstall your current version — just install the update over your existing installation. If you’re not yet a WinCatalog user, feel free to try our free trial and explore all the new features.
Thank you for using WinCatalog!
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: June 13, 2025
We’d like to inform our users that BitDefender has recently shown a false-positive alert for the latest WinCatalog installer. We’re aware of this issue and have already submitted a false-positive report to BitDefender.
We’re pleased to share that BitDefender has completed their analysis and confirmed that the file is clean. The detection will be removed in one of their upcoming database updates.
In addition, we’ve verified the installer using VirusTotal, which scanned the file with over 70 different antivirus programs. The results confirm the file is safe. You can view the report here:
If you prefer not to wait for BitDefender’s next update, you can update WinCatalog manually. Simply download the “no installer” version, unzip it, and replace the entire WinCatalog folder in your Program Files (x86) directory.
👉 Download WinCatalog (no installer version)
Thank you for your understanding and continued support!
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: May 28, 2025
Hello, we are pleased to announce the release of WinCatalog 2024.11, bringing you more accurate cataloging, richer media information, and smoother search and user interface performance.
Improved Importing Accuracy
Root Virtual Folder Size Update: Importing from another catalog file now correctly updates the size of the root virtual folder that hosts all imported contents, ensuring that your catalog always reflects the true storage footprint of your media and files.
Smarter Handling of Reparse Points
Better Support for Cloud-Synced Folders: WinCatalog now handles reparse points more intelligently. If a reparse point refers to the same location where it resides and the folder has the cloud attribute (as in OneDrive or Synology Drive), it is now treated as a regular folder, not a symbolic link.
This means these folders will be included in the catalog even when the “Do not follow symbolic links (shortcuts to folders)” option is enabled, ensuring more complete and accurate scanning of cloud-synced directories.
Enhanced Statistics Tracking
Stats Counter by Extension: Statistics are now incremented by file extensions rather than by processing modules. Even if the Basic File Info profile is selected, the stats counter is fully populated, giving you immediate visibility into your file-type distribution.
New Media Information Fields
Expanded MediaInfo Support: We’ve added new metadata fields sourced from MediaInfo: General Title, HDR Profile, Color Range, Color Primaries, Transfer Characteristics, and Matrix Coefficients. Searchable Metadata: All newly added fields are now fully searchable, allowing you to filter and locate files based on any of these advanced media attributes, or include them into Reports.
Advanced Search Capabilities
Non-Latin Character Queries: Fixed an issue that prevented the use of additional search options when queries contained non-Latin characters. You can now rely on consistent, diacritic-insensitive search behavior across all scripts and languages.
User Interface Fixes
Main Tabs Close Button Access: Resolved a UI issue where very long captions in the Main Tabs would obscure the close “[×]” button. You can now close tabs without difficulty, regardless of caption length.
Minor Fixes and Improvements
Various under-the-hood optimizations and stability improvements to make WinCatalog even more reliable.
To upgrade to WinCatalog 2024.11, simply download and install the latest version:
There is no need to uninstall your current version — just install the update over your existing installation. If you’re not yet a WinCatalog user, feel free to try our free trial and explore all the new features.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback. We hope you enjoy these enhancements!
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: May 21, 2025
We recently released WinCatalog 2024.10, and shortly after the release, some users reported a critical issue affecting the core functionality of the application.
The issue was caused by a new feature that is still under development. Although the feature was not enabled, part of its code was unintentionally included in the release. As a result, the bug blocked the ability to add new drives to the catalog or update existing ones, which is a key function of WinCatalog.
We’ve now addressed the issue by fixing the unfinished feature and released a revised version: WinCatalog 2024.10.1 (Build 410).
If you downloaded WinCatalog 2024.10 before this announcement, we kindly ask you to re-download the updated version using the link below:
👉 Download WinCatalog 2024.10.1 (Build 410)
This build restores normal functionality and ensures the application performs as expected.
We sincerely apologize for the disruption this issue may have caused. Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and your continued support. Special thanks to those who quickly reported the issue and helped us resolve it swiftly.
— The WinCatalog Team
Posted on: April 10, 2025
Hello, we are pleased to announce the release of WinCatalog version 2024.10, introducing a range of enhancements and fixes aimed at improving stability, performance, and the overall user experience.
WinCatalog now processes the content of PDF files more efficiently by eliminating extra whitespace during text extraction. Additionally, the handling of date fields from PDF metadata has been improved—WinCatalog now correctly interprets dates stored in various formats, ensuring accurate recording of document creation and modification times.
The Properties pane now displays “Added” and “Updated” fields for drives. These fields provide timestamps for when a drive was first added to the catalog and when it was last updated, helping with better organization and version tracking.
The application now supports thumbnail extraction from AVIF and AFIF image formats, broadening the range of media file types that WinCatalog can catalog.
The tags list has been updated for better compatibility with high-DPI monitors and high scaling factors. Visual clutter on the Tags page has been eliminated.
A new “Tape” drive type has been added to support users utilizing tape-based storage solutions. WinCatalog does not detect tape drives automatically; however, the drive type can always be changed manually via the Properties window, under the Volume Info tab.
The “Open in Explorer” command has been renamed to “Reveal in File Explorer” for improved clarity and consistency with modern operating system terminology.
An issue where thumbnails generated for Microsoft Office files displayed a “trial” watermark has been resolved. Thumbnails now appear cleanly without any unnecessary markings.
To upgrade to WinCatalog 2024.10, simply download and install the latest version: download now. There is no need to uninstall your current version. For existing users, upgrade eligibility can be checked on the website. If you’re new to WinCatalog, a free trial is available to explore the full range of features.
Posted on: April 9, 2025
