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
WinCatalog 2026.1.1 is available now. We focused this update on scan reliability, fixing window focus bugs, and tuning the AI Bridge.
Better Scan Error Reporting
Unexpected errors during long scans—like access denials or missing system folders—used to trigger partial scan warnings that weren’t always useful. We cleaned this up:
-ScanErrors [Show|Skip|Default] command-line flag so you can suppress or show the error dialog in batch scripts.AI Bridge Tuning
We updated the AI response parser to extract data reliably even when local models return slightly malformed description. We also capped the image resolution sent to AI providers at 448×448 pixels. This suites best for Gemma 4 models family, but continues to speed up description generation without losing necessary visual detail. Additionally, the column state in the AI Queue now persists consistently across sessions.
Additional Fixes
Upgrading to WinCatalog 2026
WinCatalog 2026 is a free upgrade for everyone who purchased a full license to WinCatalog 2024 (not an upgrade from a previous version), or a Lifetime Major Upgrades option, or the upgrade to WinCatalog 2024 within the last 6 months from the release date (starting from October 1st, 2025).
Others can purchase an upgrade at a special price with a 50% discount. To check your upgrade status or renew a registration key, please click here.
Download
To download WinCatalog 2026.1.1 please click here. You do not need to uninstall a previous version of WinCatalog. Just install the latest version over the existing one.
Posted on: April 24, 2026
Hello, we’re glad to announce a new major update, WinCatalog 2026. The version number is 2026.1.
This release adds AI-powered image analysis, support for several new file types, and improvements based on user feedback.
AI-powered image descriptions with AI Bridge
WinCatalog 2026 introduces AI Bridge, a companion tool that uses a local AI model running on your computer to analyze image thumbnails already stored in your catalog. For each image, AI Bridge generates a short caption describing the scene, a set of keywords, a category label, and a shot type (close-up, medium shot, etc.).
All of this gets saved in the catalog database and is searchable immediately. Type “dog on beach” or “birthday party” and find matching images even if none of those words appear in the file names or EXIF tags.
AI Bridge works with LM Studio and Ollama, and handles images (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, RAW) and video files that have generated thumbnails.
Because everything runs locally, no images or data leave your computer. And since the AI models are open-source and downloaded once, there are no subscription fees or per-image costs.
eComic scanning
WinCatalog 2026 can now scan comic book archives in CBZ, CBR, and CB7 formats. The scanner reads Comic Info metadata embedded inside these archives, pulling out title, series, author, and other comic-specific details. If you have a digital comics collection, you can now catalog and search it like any other file type.
Font files with preview thumbnails
For every TTF or OTF file in your catalog, WinCatalog 2026 now renders a preview thumbnail that displays the font name together with a configurable phrase (the standard “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog 0123456789” pangram phrase is pre-defined) in the typeface itself. If you keep hundreds or thousands of fonts on disk, you can finally browse them by eye in the standard WinCatalog grid view instead of opening each file separately.
Disk image scanning
You can now scan inside disk image files in ISO, VHD, VMDK, VDI, and WIM formats without mounting them first. Whether it’s installation media, virtual machine snapshots, or system backups, WinCatalog reads the file structure inside the image and adds it to your catalog.
3D model support
WinCatalog 2026 can scan STL and 3MF model files and generate thumbnail previews for each one, so you can visually browse your 3D assets at a glance.
Metadata panel improvements
We renamed the Multimedia tab in the Properties panel to Metadata. It now shows more information, including comic book metadata for eComic files and AI-generated descriptions. A new description.ion parser reads folder and file comments from readme files, so those become searchable in your catalog too.
Better post-scan reporting
We redesigned the error and warning dialog that appears after scanning. You can now sort the results, copy them to clipboard, save to file, and resize the dialog, which makes it easier to work through issues from a scan.
Scanning profile management
You can mark any profile as the default with a star toggle, so your preferred configuration is always one click away. Profile renaming updates immediately across the interface. Useful if you maintain profiles for different media types or storage locations.
Other improvements
This release includes smaller fixes and tweaks based on user feedback. EXE icon extraction during scanning is now configurable. Background maintenance of the external search index is more stable. Other performance and stability fixes are included as well.
Upgrading to WinCatalog 2026
WinCatalog 2026 is a free upgrade for everyone who purchased a full license to WinCatalog 2024 (not an upgrade from a previous version), or a Lifetime Major Upgrades option, or the upgrade to WinCatalog 2024 within the last 6 months from the release date (starting from October 1st, 2025).
Others can purchase an upgrade at a special price with a 50% discount. To check your upgrade status or renew a registration key, please click here.
Download
To download WinCatalog 2026.1 please click here. You do not need to uninstall a previous version of WinCatalog. Just install the latest version over the existing one.
Posted on: April 15, 2026
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