Improved pull request "Files Changed" experience feedback

[Akash1134]

Important
You can opt in to the public preview from any pull request via “✨Try the new experience” in the upper-right corner. You can return to the classic view by clicking the “switch back” link.

About the new experience

This refresh focuses on performance, accessibility, and clarity so reviews stay responsive—even on the largest pull requests.

What’s new ?

Performance 🚀

• Faster diff rendering with significantly lower memory usage.

UX ✨

• NEW: Comment and annotation indicators appear in the file tree to help you quickly identify files with comments, errors, or warnings.
• NEW: Pending comments are shown in the review submission panel so you can look over your comments before submitting.
• NEW: Local draft comments persist across page refreshes.
• NEW: Seamlessly switch between split and unified views.
• NEW: A new side panel helps you discover comments, including the ability to search for text while also providing quick access to errors and warnings (i.e. annotations) reported by status checks.
• NEW: The file tree is now resizable so you can take advantage of your larger display.

Accessibility

• NEW: Consistent keyboard navigation and screen reader landmarks added for better accessibility.
• NEW: Increased line spacing for readability—use Compact line height if you prefer a tighter view

What's missing? 🟨

As of the initial public preview release, there are some temporary limitations that will be addressed over time:

• Comment at the file level (including binary files): IN PROGRESS
• Rich diff previews for images (SVGs, PNGs, etc) and markdown WORK STARTS THIS MONTH
• Applying multiple suggestions at one time (i.e. batching)
• Reviewing a single commit
• Code scanning alerts
• Annotations on unchanged files
• Small screen (e.g. mobile device) responsive layout

While our previous experience had hard limits on large PRs, this new experience is being built to scale. That said, we’re increasing our limits incrementally. To start with, our additional current limitations are:

• Limited to 300 files
• Comments: 40
• Replies per comment: 20
• Alerts: 50

How you can help

1. Report bugs, edge cases, or usability pain points in the replies (screenshots/gifs welcome).
2. Tell us which future enhancements would make the biggest impact on your workflow.

Thanks for helping us build a better review experience—we read every comment!

[willmarcondeseso]

I would like to be able to scroll through the Pull Request while the comment modal is open.

Reason: When a comment is outdated, we need to look at the current version to check if it actually addresses the comment.

I really love this feature! THANK YOU!!!

[MarlzRana]

Would pinning the Comments side panel to the side of the page work for you? This is something we are exploring, but recognize it will leave less horizontal room for code (since the panel would live next to the code and not on top of).

Just hit this I think from the description - it would be great to see "outdated comments" on the new revision (post feedback addressal) if possible/have the ability to toggle it. I understand the location of where the comments were initially made no longer be the same but in general they would still be helpful even if there are in the close vicinity. There would obviously have to be some handling of edges cases i.e where the line number doesn't exist anymore etc.

Overall this is a great re-haul - tysm!! 😄

[MarlzRana]

It looks like VSCode's GitHub Pull Requests extension is able to do - it would nice to have continuity between the two ;)

[konovenski]

review sidebar is AWFUL. Please never deploy it to prod.

[erikpragt-connectid]

Same here: I just tried out the new approval process, and now there is this big sidebar. That is quite horrific, please get rid of it, I reverted immediately back to the old UI.

[shihui-huang]

Same here, it took me long time to find "Only files owned by you" button. I thought this feature has been dropped.

[rtalexk]

Update: I just found out that it appears when there's enough space (1280px width). Here's the updated feedback.

I'd like to see the branch name in the sticky header at all times so that I can easily copy it when I'm reviewing a PR.

---

I wrote the following before thoroughly experimenting.

I'd like to see the branch name when the sticky header is shown (i.e., when you've scrolled to the bottom).

The reason is that when I'm reviewing a long PR and want to checkout the branch to continue reviewing it locally, I have to go back all the way up to see or copy the branch name and then go back to where I left off.

[arisacoba]

@rtalexk We’ve just updated this to fit more content in the sticky header on smaller viewports. The branch name might get truncated depending on the size, but you can hover over it to see the full name in a tooltip.

[rtalexk]

That's perfect, as soon as it has the Copy button it is fine. Thank you!

[nniesen]

Similar scrolling issue getting back "Conversation" or "Submit Review" when far down in a large PR. Maybe those could move over into the side navigation or maybe the sticky header briefly becomes a floaty thing when scrolling.

[RentecJeremy]

I came here just to comment "Thank you for the branch name in the sticky header". I can't tell you how many mammoth PR's I've had to scroll up, or duplicate the tab, or (insert method of getting branch name here)... now the branch name is just there and copy-able. 🤌

[rtalexk]

I find the comment indicators in the sidebar really useful. It might also be useful to have them in the "diff file header."

It's very useful when you've marked a file as "viewed" because you can see how many comments it has as you're scrolling without having to expand it.

[aricwalker]

That's great to hear and great suggestion! I agree it could be useful to have comment indicators at the file level especially when scrolling through "viewed" files. We'll take this back to the team to discuss. Thanks for the feedback!

[ScottRitterDns]

Totally second this. The current enhancements for the ability to review your own comments is a game changer. The ability to scan large PRs through all the collapsed (viewed) files would be the final cherry on that cake!

[shekibobo]

Building on this, it would be great to also see outdated comments on a file in a dropdown, so even if they're outdated and don't show up inline in the file diff, they could still be found within the file context.

[thornevale]

It would be helpful to have a dropdown in the file view that shows outdated comments too. That way, even if they're not shown inline anymore, we can still find and read them in the context of the file.

[rtalexk]

Seamlessly switch between split and unified views.

This is really cool. Is it also possible to seamlessly toggle hiding white spaces? If that's achievable without doing a refresh would be amazing.

[sinapy]

Would love it to be user-level preference.

[fmichaut-diff]

Seemless switching would surely be a nice to have, but user level preference is a big big QOL improvement !

[smil2k]

Thanks for the feedback.

• We are planning to support seamless switching of "hide whitespace-only changes", but no timeline yet.
• We are also exploring the implications of making this a user-level preference so it would be remembered/applied consistently across all PRs. Do others have thoughts/opinions on this?

There are 3-4 chrome extensions to fix this missing feature. Please implement it as it is very annoying to set it each time.

[ryansheabla]

Thanks for the feedback.

• We are planning to support seamless switching of "hide whitespace-only changes", but no timeline yet.
• We are also exploring the implications of making this a user-level preference so it would be remembered/applied consistently across all PRs. Do others have thoughts/opinions on this?

Would it be possible to set "Compact line height" as a user preference as well? I like the changes overall but much prefer the original setting.

[jessehersch]

Thanks for the feedback.

• We are planning to support seamless switching of "hide whitespace-only changes", but no timeline yet.
• We are also exploring the implications of making this a user-level preference so it would be remembered/applied consistently across all PRs. Do others have thoughts/opinions on this?

please do this soon. it's been too long! This discussion is 4 years old, and it says the feature was asked for 3 years before that! So long that the original feature request is a dead link. https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/5486

[rtalexk]

Clicking a line number always assumes you want to add a comment.

In the previous experience it only changes the URL to have deep linking.

[aaccioly]

Any workarounds to obtain permanent urls?

[arisacoba]

@rtalexk which browser are you using? Clicking the line number should just highlight the line, not open the add comment flow.

[rtalexk]

I'm using Arc Browser, but this isn't happening anymore. 👀

[thuringia]

This is so much better, I might go back from reviewing with the VSCode extension now 🚀

I love the new alerts panel, unfortunately it looks like pressing a to hide them doesn't work anymore.

Maybe we could have some grouping or clustering in the alerts panel in the future.
For example I would prefer to see alerts raised by the linter first, instead of "this line is not covered by tests".

[eugenet8k]

What VSCode extension did you use for code review?

[JasonZhuWTG]

What VSCode extension did you use for code review?
I think 'GitHub Pull Requests'

[audreyality]

unfortunately it looks like pressing a to hide them doesn't work anymore.

When this feature comes back, it'd be nice if hiding the annotations also stopped them from being added to the clipboard when copying code.

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. We are planning to restore the ability to use a to hide annotations.

[reecefenwick]

I would love to see the file tree sorted alphabetically with folders on top, then files. It is quite jarring to have changed files in the middle of folders when viewing the file tree currently.

Example of current state

App.tsx
components/
hooks/
index.ts
styles/
utils.ts

Example of desired state

components/
hooks/
styles/
App.tsx
index.ts
utils.ts

This would mirror how the majority of developers view the code in their IDE

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback.

I definitely agree that we need to avoid mixing files and folders at the same level. How would you feel about files being listed before folders (when at the same level)?

App.tsx
index.ts
utils.ts
components/
hooks/
styles/

[reecefenwick]

Files below is preferable IMO for a more consistent experience

But I also would welcome files above, it would be a massive improvement 🙌

[franzliedke]

Indeed, files below would also be consistent with GitHub's own repo tree view.

[Nilomiranda]

I don't see the option to comment on the file itself, only on specific lines.

Some files just get stuck into a loading state, like this one:

The comments tab is really nice, I like being able to filter comments by author, makes it much easier to navigate the reviews and attend to the requested changes or overall feedback.

[cjourdan-movidius]

Agree with all previous comments. Great feature and would be nice to get the info easily that it's WIP for the new interface.
Fun thing: I temporarily reverted to current UI in order to add a file-level comment in a PR and then back to new UI for the rest of the review. Worked fine, the file-level comment was correctly listed in the side bar when submitting the review and alongside other comments once the review was submitted. Obviously not a long-term solution but just an FYI.

[mohamed-abdul-fattah]

+1

[arihantbansal]

+1

[bassel-shouban-rp]

+1

[willsmythe]

I don't see the option to comment on the file itself, only on specific lines.

Commenting on files is now available in the new page 🎉! See https://github.blog/changelog/2025-07-17-pull-request-files-changed-public-preview-experience-july-17-updates/

add.file.level.comment.in.new.page.mp4

[jieyouxu]

Hi, I would like to play around with this, but I'm not seeing the opt-in mentioned in

You can opt in to the public preview from any pull request via “✨Try the new experience” in the upper-right corner. You can return to the classic view by clicking the “switch back” link.

Am I missing something?

[imanmahjoubi]

We are rolling this out to users slowly, you should be able to see it soon 🎉

[margaret-lin]

The tab for Ask Copilot seems to be missing, also when hovering over lines.

[GRA0007]

thank goodness

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. The line-level Copilot actions are available on the actions menu (which is available when the line(s) is selected):

The "Copilot" button in the global header has replaced the "Ask Copilot" button on the Files Changed page. It similarly attaches the current PR to the chat context, but does not offer the same multi-select checkbox of files to also attach to the diff. Is this (start chatting about a PR and with one or more specific files) important to you?

[smcmanis]

Yes, I often use the multi-select checkbox to select a subset of files to include in the chat.

[zak-flex]

It could just be me, but when the copilot UI is not open and I choose "Attach to current thread", I expect something to happen. Generally, getting back to a Copilot chat after it's closed is harder than I feel it should be.

[JayLathiaTR]

This is an important functionality, where I just ask the Copilot by selecting all files saying - 'What are these changes about and scan for any security flaws for these files'.

So yes, this is required for sure, and this is the only reason - I am not using the new 'File Changed' feature.

[njvrzm]

Not sure if this is the sort of feedback you're after, but the :shipit: emoji does not preview in the review textbox in the new version 😅 . It does show up correctly in the preview.

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. We'll address.

[KeithYeh]

1. I can't find "comment on this file" button in new UI

Old UI

2. How to hide alerts? I can toggle alerts by pressing "A" in old UI

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. Both are known issues we're tracking.

[airvision-tw]

Indeed! I am also missing this functionality in the new view.

[cristinadoroftei]

True, I use the "comment on this file" feature quite often and I switched to the old view just because it's missing on the new one 😿

[Smolyan91]

+

[julioag-rmd]

On the Files changed tab I can only see 19 files out of 66. Why?

[ShaunSHamilton]

I have seen this a few times as well. What I noticed is I would only be show one commit's changes as opposed to "All changes" - even though that option appeared selected.

As other's pointed out, re-selecting the "All changes" fixed the issue.

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. We're investigating.

[yawkat]

just saw this issue as well.

[chris-martin]

Switching back to the old UI specifically because of this bug.

[romain-trotard]

I have the same problem.
My Step To Reproduce is the following one:

• Click on the View it on Github in the email notification

• And then clicking on the Files changed tab

[vengut]

I used to be able to click on a useful link to see the submodule diff in PRs but now its just plain text.
Old:

New:

Could we have that back pls?

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. We'll get the list of known issues updated (it's a known gap we plan to address).

[owieth]

I also used to have a nice summary of all changed files for submodules:

OLD:

[cdunford]

👍 any of the above; missing being able to see what changed; I have to flip back to do the old experience to do it

[Lachy-Antero]

Our release process heavily relies on the ability to click through to see the commit diff of submodules. Will be very sad to see this go.

[hsl0]

I want to see that nice summary of changes for non-GitHub hosted submodules, too.

[BE-Code]

It doesn't always seem to remember if hide whitespace was turned on.

[nekketsuuu]

+1. For example, after enabling "Hide whitespace", expanding omitted codes shows whitespace-only diffs.

[rmartins0]

Hide whitespace option not working properly. When going to direct link with ?w=1, it didn't work.

[willsmythe]

Thanks for reporting. We're investigating.

[Scramle]

Currently, I think the toggle is just backwards. "Hide whitespace" turned on sets the query param to ?w=1, and turning it of sets it to ?w=0. Expected behaviour should be the other way around. So in @rmartins0's case, that link works as it should, as w=1 shows whitespaces and w=0 hides them.

[adamlacoste]

The checkboxes for task lists in PR comments cannot be checked or unchecked. They appear as if disabled to the user and don't respond to clicks. Switching back to the old PR experience makes them interactive again.

My team recently migrated from BitBucket, which has a feature which allows you to add a task to any comment on the PR; the PR's tasks are then summarized in one convenient location. GitHub doesn't have this feature, but the task list provided by the comment editor at least gives us a way to explicitly note that something needs to happen and then check that item off as completed when it's done.

[dvg-p4]

Due to the performance improvements making it pretty fast to render large diffs, it would be nice if there were an option to always render large diffs by default, or at least to keep the ones you expanded on a previous view open the next time you visit the page. Especially if they have comments on them (c.f. https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/65214).

Or, at least bump up how many lines a diff has to be before github considers it "large" and collapses it by default.

[charlesj]

After the first comment on a file, submitting later comments always moved the browser focus back to the first comment on that document. this is especially jarring on large files.

[raushankumar620]

I've recently tried out the improved "Files Changed" experience in pull requests, and I must say it's a solid upgrade! Here’s my feedback:

Performance: The new interface feels faster, especially when reviewing large PRs with multiple files. This really helps reduce friction during code reviews.

Filtering & Navigation: The ability to filter changes by file type or directory is a game-changer. It saves a lot of time when working on monorepos or larger codebases.

Side-by-Side View: The refined side-by-side diff is cleaner and more readable. The syntax highlighting is sharper and makes reviewing much easier.

Sticky Headers: Love the sticky file headers while scrolling through long diffs. This small UX improvement goes a long way.

💡 Suggestions:

It would be great to have collapsible sections per file to reduce scrolling when we already reviewed certain files.

Maybe introduce inline commenting shortcuts to speed up feedback further.

Overall, I appreciate GitHub continuing to improve the PR review experience—it really impacts productivity and collaboration in open-source and team workflows alike!

[1280px]

Still no SVG diff support... sadge

[aaronweihe]

the new UI is missing the filter by only files owned by you. it's super convenient with a large change set touches many code owners.

For example, I will only need to review one file with the filter vs 27 files.

[setharnold]

Clicking Add Review Comment jumps the view back to the previous comment that I added. This was very confusing and mildly annoying to find my place again. If I were reviewing out-of-order, it'd probably be moderately annoying.

I'm on Firefox 136.0 on Ubuntu using Tridactyl 1.24.2.

[lucianomlima]

A file was deleted after review, which broke the reviewed file progress.

[justin-hu-ai]

I am fairly certain I used to be able to finish reviewing a PR without having to leave a parent comment; now it forces me to do that which I do not want to do if possible :D

[justin-hu-ai]

This could also just be me but I feel like the UX here is a tad confusing:

It makes me feel like I have 7 comments that aren't actually applied yet to my review when in reality these are the existing comments in the discussion of the PR

[shaedrich]

I really like the new version, however, there are a few things, I want to note:

Changes

In the old version, one could just filter. This is now one more click away. I don't like that complication and would prefer it to be inline.

Commenting

When I click at the ▼ icon, I can decide whether to comment or suggest.

But when I click on the ➕ icon, it goes right to commenting

While this is not a huge issue, it'd be nice if that was consistent

Bonus option: Add quick actions (e.g. "suggest to revert line") to the context menu

[webuyfobs]

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[shaedrich]

Is this a metaphor or an ad?

[andrew-lis]

I'm disappointed that it still doesn't work to:

1. Limit displayed files by clicking on an element folder on the file tree. When I want to concentrate on files in particular directory I don't want to see other files (they distract me).
2. To see on the file tree what directories were already reviewed.
3. To be able to mark the whole directory on the file free as reviewed without marking all files separately. It's a batch mark just like in GitHub plugin to VS Code.

All these features are already available in GitHub Visual Studio Code plugin or Azure DevOps.

[hospitalsupply3434]

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[shaedrich]

Is this a implying something or just an ad?

[oleg-slapdash]

Animated gif at the end of the file-diff is distracted, it should be removed.