Reputation: 355394

How do I remove local (untracked) files from the current Git working tree?

How do I delete untracked local files from the current working tree?

Upvotes: 8295

Answers (30)

Tim Baverstock

Reputation: 568

Here's something from https://stackoverflow.com/a/14515846/10348047 to a question which linked here as a duplicate. I found this very useful for an LFS-related issue where none of git reset --hard or git clean -df or git restore --staged . resolved things.

## create a stand-alone, tagged, empty commit
true | git mktree | xargs git commit-tree | xargs git tag empty

## clear the working copy
git checkout empty

## go back to where you were before
git checkout master (or whatever)

Upvotes: 3

JD Brennan

Reputation: 1112

If you just want to delete the files listed as untracked by 'git status'

git stash save -u
git stash drop "stash@{0}"

I prefer this to 'git clean' because 'git clean' will delete files ignored by git, so your next build will have to rebuild everything and you may lose your IDE settings too.

Upvotes: 22

Andreas Ericsson

Reputation:

git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Synopsis
git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>…
Description

Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not under version control, starting from the current directory.

Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be useful to remove all build products.

If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are affected.

Step 1 is to show what will be deleted by using the -n option:

# Print out the list of files and directories which will be removed (dry run)
git clean -n -d

Clean Step - beware: this will delete files:

# Delete the files from the repository
git clean -f

To remove directories, run git clean -f -d or git clean -fd
To remove ignored files, run git clean -f -X or git clean -fX
To remove ignored and non-ignored files, run git clean -f -x or git clean -fx

Note the case difference on the X for the two latter commands.

If clean.requireForce is set to "true" (the default) in your configuration, one needs to specify -f otherwise nothing will actually happen.

Again see the git-clean docs for more information.

Options

-f, --force

If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given -f, -n or -i.

-x

Don’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

-X

Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

-n, --dry-run

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

-d

Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.

Upvotes: 9969

Bhavith C

Reputation: 160

Just you need the below command as simple as that git clean -fdx

Upvotes: 0

Ahmet Emrebas

Reputation: 945

This is the way.

git add .
git stash

For more information https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes/git-stash#stashing-your-work

Upvotes: 15

DevWL

Reputation: 18840

Be careful while running `git clean` command.

Always use `-n` first

Always use -n before running the clean command as it will show you what files would get removed.

-d Normally, when no is specified, git clean will not recurse into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories mentioned under --force) will be removed.

-f | --force If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second -f is given.

git clean -n -d 
git clean -n -d -f

Now run without -n if output was what you intend to remove.

git clean -d -f

By default, git clean will only remove untracked files that are not ignored. Any file that matches a pattern in your .gitignore or other ignore files will not be removed. If you want to remove those files too, you can add a -x to the clean command.

git clean -f -d -x

There is also interactive mode available -i with the clean command

git clean -x -i

Alternatively

If you are not 100% sure that deleting your uncommitted work is safe, you could use stashing instead

git stash --all

Before you use stash --all note: If the --all option is used, then the ignored files are stashed and cleaned in addition to the untracked files.

git stash push --keep-index

If the --keep-index option is used, all changes already added to the index are left intact. Your staged changes remain in your workspace, but at the same time, they are also saved into your stash.

Calling git stash without any arguments is equivalent to git stash push.

git stash push -m "name your stash" // before git stash save (deprecated)

Stashing based on the used flags can clear your directory from unstaged / staged files by writing them to stash storage. I give’s flexibility to retrieve the files at any point in time using stash with apply or pop. Then if you are fine with removing your stashed files you could run:

git stash drop // or clean

To see full instruction on how to work with stash see this How to name and retrieve a stash by name in git?

Upvotes: 155

jenny

Reputation: 520

git add --all, git stash and git stash drop, try these three commands in this order inorder to remove all untracked files. By adding all those untracked files to git and stashing them will move all those untracked files to stash list and dropping out top one i.e., stash@{0} will remove the stashed changes from stash list.

Upvotes: 20

KARTHIKEYAN.A

Reputation: 20080

To remove complete changes git clean -f -d

$ git clean -f -d
Removing client/app/helpers/base64.js
Removing files/
Removing package.json.bak

where 
-f is force 
-d is a directory

Upvotes: 9

Samir Kape

Reputation: 2065

usage: git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e ] [-x | -X] [--] ...

-q, --quiet           do not print names of files removed
-n, --dry-run         dry run
-f, --force           force
-i, --interactive     interactive cleaning
-d                    remove whole directories
-e, --exclude <pattern>
                      add <pattern> to ignore rules
-x                    remove ignored files, too
-X                    remove only ignored files

Upvotes: 2

robert.berger

Reputation: 13861

Use git clean -f -d to make sure that directories are also removed.

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
```
git clean -n
```
or
```
git clean --dry-run
```
Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use the -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.
```
git clean -fd
```

You can then check if your files are really gone with git status.

Upvotes: 1313

Rajeev Shetty

Reputation: 1764

To remove Untracked files :

git add .
git reset --hard HEAD

Upvotes: 31

ideasman42

Reputation: 47968

This can be done using a shell script, I use this scrtipt that lists what will be removed, then lets me confirm the operation.

This is useful since I sometimes have patches or other files I'd like to check on before wiping everything away.

#!/bin/bash
readarray -t -d '' FILES < <(git ls-files -z --other --directory)
if [ "$FILES" = "" ]; then
    echo  "Nothing to clean!"
    exit 0
fi
echo -e "Dirty files:\n"
printf '  %s\n' "${FILES[@]}"
DO_REMOVE=0
while true; do
    echo ""
    read -p "Remove ${#FILES[@]} files? [y/n]: " choice
    case "$choice" in
        y|Y )
            DO_REMOVE=1
            break ;;
        n|N )
            echo "Exiting!"
            break ;;
        * ) echo "Invalid input, expected [Y/y/N/n]"
            continue ;;
    esac
done

if [ "$DO_REMOVE" -eq 1 ];then
    echo "Removing!"
    for f in "${FILES[@]}"; do
        rm -rfv -- "$f"
    done
fi

Upvotes: 0

Shital Shah

Reputation: 68678

Remove all extra folders and files in this repo + submodules

This gets you in same state as fresh clone.

git clean -ffdx

Remove all extra folders and files in this repo but not its submodules

git clean -fdx

Remove extra folders but not files (ex. build or logs folder)

git clean -fd

Remove extra folders + ignored files (but not newly added files)

If file wasn't ignored and not yet checked-in then it stays. Note the capital X.

git clean -fdX

New interactive mode

git clean

Upvotes: 99

Alireza

Reputation: 104640

OK, deleting unwanted untracked files and folders are easy using git in command line, just do it like this:

git clean -fd

Double check before doing it as it will delete the files and folders without making any history...

Also in this case, -f stands for force and -d stands for directory...

So, if you want to delete files only, you can use -f only:

git clean -f

If you want to delete(directories) and files, you can delete only untracked directories and files like this:

git clean -fd

Also, you can use -x flag for including the files which are ignored by git. This would be helpful if you want to delete everything.

And adding -i flag, makes git asking you for permission for deleting files one by one on the go.

If you not sure and want to check things first, add -n flag.

Use -q if you don't want to see any report after successful deletion.

I also create the image below to make it more memorable, especially I have seen many people confuse -f for cleaning folder sometimes or mix it up somehow!

Upvotes: 71

Thirdy

Reputation: 235

I use this:

git status
copy the path of the file
rm <path of file>

My project has a lot of generated files created by a giant ANT build script. Using git clean would create chaos.

Upvotes: -6

victorm1710

Reputation: 1513

If nothing else works, to simply remove all the changes listed by the "git status" command one can use the following combo:

git add -A && git commit -m temp && git reset --hard HEAD^

This will first stage all of your changes then create a temporary commit and then discard it.

Upvotes: 2

Thanga

Reputation: 8081

Simple Way to remove untracked files

To remove all untracked files, The simple way is to add all of them first and reset the repo as below

git add --all
git reset --hard HEAD

Upvotes: 411

Zia

Reputation: 233

I like to use git stash command, later you can get stashed files and changes. git clean is also a good option but totally depends on your requirement. here is the explanation of git stash and git clean,7.3 Git Tools - Stashing and Cleaning

Upvotes: 4

hiroshi

Reputation: 7251

I like git stash push -u because you can undo them all with git stash pop.

EDIT: Also I found a way to show untracked file in a stash (e.g. git show stash@{0}^3) https://stackoverflow.com/a/12681856/338986

EDIT2: git stash save is deprecated in favor of push. Thanks @script-wolf.

Upvotes: 164

Gediminas Šukys

Reputation: 7391

I haved failed using most popular answers here - git doesn't delete untracked files from the repository anyway. No idea why. This is my super simplified answer without SPECIAL GIT COMMANDS!

Mission: delete untracked files from git repository:

Move files and folders elsewhere from your local project folder for a while
Delete all lines in .gitignore about these files and folders for the commit
Git add .
Git commit -m “Cleaning repository from untracked files”
Git push

All files and folders has been deleted from the repository.

Lets restore them on localhost if you need them:

Move back all files and folders you have moved temporary to the local project folder again
Move back all lines about these files and folders to .gitignore
Git add .
Git commit -m “Checking or files not appearing again in git repository”
Git push

You are done!

Upvotes: 2

Jämes

Reputation: 7235

oh-my-zsh with zsh provides those great aliases via the git plugin. They can be used in bash as well.

gclean='git clean -fd'
gpristine='git reset --hard && git clean -dfx'

gclean removes untracked directories in addition to untracked files.
gpristine hard reset the local changes, remove untracked directories, untracked files and don't use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

Upvotes: 8

Sudhir Vishwakarma

Reputation: 805

git clean -f

will remove the untracked files from the current git

git clean -fd

when you want to remove directories and files, this will delete only untracked directories and files

Upvotes: 7

Sergey

Reputation: 1590

Clean out git repository and all submodules recursively

The following command will clean out the current git repository and all its submodules recursively:
(git clean -d -x -f && git submodule foreach --recursive git clean -d -x -f)

Upvotes: 8

Elangovan

Reputation: 3538

We can easily removed local untracked files from the current git working tree by using below git comments.

git reset [--soft | --mixed [-N] | --hard | --merge | --keep] [-q] [<commit>]

Example:

git reset --hard HEAD

Links :

Upvotes: 8

Mohideen bin Mohammed

Reputation: 20137

uggested Command for Removing Untracked Files from git docs is git clean

git clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Suggested Method: Interative Mode by using git clean -i so we can have control over it. let see remaining available options.

Available Options:

git clean 
    -d -f -i -n -q -e -x -X (can use either)

Explanation:

1. -d

Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.

2. -f, --force

If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given -f, -n or -i.

3. -i, --interactive

Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See “Interactive mode” for details.

4. -n, --dry-run

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

5. -q, --quiet

Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are successfully removed.

6. -e , --exclude=

In addition to those found in .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, also consider these patterns to be in the set of the ignore rules in effect.

7. -x

Don’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

8. -X

Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

Upvotes: 13

Vivek

Reputation: 330

use git reset HEAD <file> to unstage a file

Upvotes: 0

Vaisakh VM

Reputation: 1071

git clean -f to remove untracked files from working directory.

I have covered some basics here in my blog, git-intro-basic-commands

Upvotes: 12

bit_cracker007

Reputation: 2569

User interactive approach:

git clean -i -fd

Remove .classpath [y/N]? N
Remove .gitignore [y/N]? N
Remove .project [y/N]? N
Remove .settings/ [y/N]? N
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/inspector/ [y/N]? y
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/manifest/ [y/N]? y
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/s3/ [y/N]? y
Remove tst/com/arsdumpgenerator/manifest/ [y/N]? y
Remove tst/com/arsdumpgenerator/s3/ [y/N]? y

-i for interactive
-f for force
-d for directory
-x for ignored files(add if required)

Note: Add -n or --dry-run to just check what it will do.

Upvotes: 32

Fire Lancer

Reputation: 30105

git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Upvotes: 421

Gnanasekar S

Reputation: 1890

Note: First navigate to the directory and checkout the branch you want to clean.

-i interactive mode and it will tell you what will be removed and you can choose an action from the list.

To clean files only [Folders will not be listed and will not be cleaned]: $ git clean -i
To clean files and folders: $ git clean -d -i

-d including directories.

If you choose c from the list. The files/folders will be deleted that are not tracked and will also remove files/folders that you mess-up.*

For instance: If you restructure the folder in your remote and pull the changes to your local computer. files/folders that are created by others initially will be in past folder and in the new one that you restructure.

Upvotes: 4

How do I remove local (untracked) files from the current Git working tree?

Answers (30)

git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Synopsis

Description

Options

Be careful while running `git clean` command.

Always use -n first

Alternatively

Simple Way to remove untracked files

Clean out git repository and all submodules recursively

Related Questions

Always use `-n` first