Allow PR reviewers to comment on *unchanged* files

[willsmythe]

Allow PR review comments on files not included (unchanged) in a pull request. This is useful when a PR reviewer needs to tell the PR author about a change they may have missed in a file that was not changed in that pull request.

From @mabwah-arista

Please consider allowing it on unmodified files too, not just unmodified lines in modified files. There are situations where a change needs to be made in another file that was overlooked. (e.g. "This file needs to be updated in a similar fashion to file B which you updated.")

This discussion was split out from an existing, related discussion 4452 that focused on commenting on any line of a changed file.

[alexykot]

I have a use case in hand that could be solved by this proposed change.

I have a PR that makes some small changes in a specific area of the codebase. This whole area was added recently, but for unrelated reasons, I've not had an opportunity to review this whole area at all when it was added. And since the current PR has drawn my attention to this - I want to use this opportunity, expand the scope of PR and review the whole newly added area altogether, including files that haven't been changed by this specific PR in hand.

This is similar to a code audit, i.e. situation where a review is needed on a codebase in it's present state, without any changes whatsoever, but I guess it would be much easier to allow commenting on any files within a context of PR than to invent a whole new concept of a code audit outside of PR context.

[frogeyedpeas]

Yea this is a much needed feature. Some codebases can be complex and good reviews might quickly grow in scope from just the changes of the dev to a much larger set if the PR being reviewed touches/interacts with many systems indirectly

[EllipticElysium]

I gree this would be very useful as well, has there been any update on this proposed feature?

[Felix14-v2]

Extremely necessary for translators – when you need to correct mistakes in an already existing translation file, but missed by the author of an already opened PR.

[jordanbtucker]

I have another use case for this. A PR contained changes that caused stale code in another file. I couldn't add a comment on the stale code in my PR review.

[EllipticElysium]

@Twizzle1 that's a perfectly valid use case

[skeptrunedev]

I would also like to have this feature. I frequently find myself needing to do this.

[mmcdonald-bw]

This would be very useful for large codebases in which old code needed to be removed/changed but was not... having to reference a line # and/or link to the code in a comment is very inconvenient.

[dancrossnyc]

Agreed that this would be critically useful. It would be great to see this happen!

[glarsennordic]

Adding my support to this request, for exactly the reason brought up by @jordanbtucker

[JGKle]

Really surprised this doesn't exist tbh - I thought I simply didn't know how to find it. But yes, it's extremely common during a PR review to find that a dev missed some related changes elsewhere in the codebase, & it seems currently there's no way to flag those. i.e. maybe they're refactoring references to a particular entity, but missed one of those references. As far as I can tell, there's no way to propose that as a change, in the spot where it actually needs to happen.

[dmoka]

Surprised that this feature does not exist in the most widely used collaboration tool in 2022.

Would love to have it, could help a lot to improve the PR review experiences.

[ewuerger]

Wanted to add a code suggestion that needed certain configuration in a file that wasn't changed. Felt unnatural to not be able to add this during the review but in another comment.

[ranbena]

+1 In a PR I want to indicate that some code should be deleted, but since it wasn't touched, there's no way to do so.

[muescha]

This is the wrong place to ask this kind of questions. Try to ask at stackoverflow

[marschmidt89]

+1 for this feature. My use case was that I was reviewing a pull request and found a seemingly obsolete file during the review. I didn't want to delete it right away, but it would have been nice to be able to add a comment on that file in the pull request.

[henrikgram]

Adding my support here as well

[YanWittmann]

I find myself wanting to use this feature more than once a week, and I would really appreciate an update on this.

[pierreolivierbonin]

Same here! I just ran into this again and I'm surprised to see there's no way to do it.

[Hamham6]

This is also a problem for PR authors. I've found myself resorting to adding whitespace in a file just to be able to add a comment there in the PR, and then deleting the whitespace once the comment is resolved. It's very roundabout and time-consuming.

[CharlelieLrt]

Highly needed feature!

[Akensio]

Highly needed, is there an ETA for implementation?

[faizan1487]

I'm not sure what the folks at GitHub are doing, but this is definitely a feature that's long overdue.

[Rand-Random]

Since I didn't see the following discussion mentioned, I want to throw it in
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/163932

this discussion lists under "What's missing?" the point

Annotations on unchanged files

[tommutdosch]

"You need to make the same change on this line" is such a common usecase when discussing changes in a PR. A changeset discussion is often about changes NOT made.

[styfle]

This feature shipped:

https://x.com/kdaigle/status/1971345509291102300

https://github.blog/changelog/2025-09-25-pull-request-files-changed-public-preview-now-supports-commenting-on-unchanged-lines/

[Rand-Random]

unchanges files != unchanges lines

so, can I annotate a totally random unchanged file?

[styfle]

Ah yes you're right. Still can't comment on unchanged files, only unchanged lines.

I see now that the original message mentions this distinction so I must have missed that:

This discussion was split out from an existing, related discussion #4452 that focused on commenting on any line of a changed file.

[jdquidet]

The "unchanged lines" doesn't take into account when you expand the code down/up. I still can't comment on those unchanged lines.

[willsmythe]

@jdquidet - if you've opted into the improved Files Changed page (see link in the upper right of the classic Files Changed page) you should be able to expand and comment anywhere in a changed file.

[davidc-thorai]

For clarity, you should be able to add a comment on any line of code as part of the PR. Classic case: someone changed one part but missed another.

[castagninojose]

I am now getting comments on files that were deleted from the codebase, and I can't even find them on Changed Files tab.

So, not only is this still not implemented, it has gotten somehow even worse than before.

Reminder to everyone that github is owned by one of the most powerful and valuable companies in the history of mankind.

[khavernathy]

Please do this.

[mekkim]

How are we still waiting for this 5 years later? It's an obvious need: Suggested changes in a file that's in the commit may affect files NOT in the commit, and therefore suggestions need to be made to those files as well or simply accepting the suggested changes will break stuff.

[ottothecow]

Just today someone commented in a PR that the code changes require a change to the README.md. That's a very convenient change to make within github's editor, but there's no way to quickly do it from the PR review interface since the readme file wasn't changed by any of the commits in the relevant branch.

They should be able to suggest edits to outside files directly in the review, and I should be able to make quick edits to files referenced in comments in a nice way that works within the PR system/tracking.

This seems like a no-brainer feature to implement. I actually spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure it out and googling it because I was surprised it wasn't possible on GitHub.

[mekkim]

This is exactly the experience we all have: "What do you mean this doesn't exist yet? It MUST! It's too obvious!"

[dlim87]

Was this feature recently reverted? I swear that I used to be able to leave comments on unchanged lines, as long as the file was touched in the PR, but today it's only letting me attach comments to lines that were actually in the diff