QGIS 2.16 Merge lacks folder option

Due to the drop of ftools, there is no chance to merge a whole folder of shapefiles from the GUI anymore. It should be possible with ogr2ogr on the commandline: http://www.northrivergeographic.com/ogr2ogr-merge-shapefiles , but you have to be sure only merging files of the same geometry type.

The Merge Vector layers algorithm only deals with loaded layers from the canvas. This is more or less what the SAGA module of the same name already does, but far less than ftoools provided.

I reported the bug at https://hub.qgis.org/issues/15321. Lets see how the developers deal with it.

As an alternative, there is the Merge shapes plugin which has the same basic functionality of the fTools' Merge tool:

You can download this from the menubar:

Plugins > Manage and Install Plugins...