Question
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?
Question
How do I delete untracked local files from the current working tree?
Solution
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
git clean -f -d
or git clean -fd
git clean -f -X
or git clean -fX
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.
Solution
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
.
Solution
I am surprised nobody mentioned this before:
git clean -i
That stands for interactive and you will get a quick overview of what is going to be deleted offering you the possibility to include/exclude the affected files. Overall, still faster than running the mandatory --dry-run
before the real cleaning.
You will have to toss in a -d
if you also want to take care of empty folders. At the end, it makes for a nice alias:
git iclean
That being said, the extra hand holding of interactive commands can be tiring for experienced users. These days I just use the already mentioned git clean -fd
Solution
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
Solution
If untracked directory is a git repository of its own (e.g. submodule), you need to use -f
twice:
git clean -d -f -f
Solution
This is what I always use:
git clean -fdx
For a very large project you might want to run it a couple of times.
Solution
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.
Solution
-n
firstAlways 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
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?
Solution
git-clean is what you are looking for. It is used to remove untracked files from the working tree.
Solution
If needed to remove untracked files from particular subdirectory,
git clean -f {dir_path}
And combined way to delete untracked dir/files and ignored files.
git clean -fxd {dir_path}
after this you will have modified files only in git status
.
Solution
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
Solution
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!
Solution
git clean -fd
removes directory
git clean -fX
removes ignored files
git clean -fx
removes ignored and un-ignored files
can be used all above options in combination as
git clean -fdXx
check git manual for more help
Solution
A better way is to use: git clean
git clean -d -x -f
This removes untracked files, including directories (-d)
and files ignored by git (-x)
.
Also, replace the -f
argument with -n
to perform a dry-run
or -i
for interactive mode and it will tell you what will be removed.
Solution
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.
Solution
To remove Untracked files :
git add .
git reset --hard HEAD
Solution
A lifehack for such situation I just invented and tried (that works perfectly):
git add .
git reset --hard HEAD
Beware! Be sure to commit any needed changes (even in non-untracked files) before performing this.
Solution
For me only following worked:
git clean -ffdx
In all other cases, I was getting message "Skipping Directory" for some subdirectories.
Solution
git clean -f -d -x $(git rev-parse --show-cdup)
applies clean to the root directory, no matter where you call it within a repository directory tree. I use it all the time as it does not force you to leave the folder where you working now and allows to clean & commit right from the place where you are.
Be sure that flags -f
, -d
, -x
match your needs:
-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.
-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, -n or -i. Git will refuse to delete directories with .git
sub directory or file unless a second -f is given. This affects
also git submodules where the storage area of the removed submodule
under .git/modules/ is not removed until -f is given twice.
-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.
There are other flags as well available, just check git clean --help
.
Solution
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.
Solution
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.
Solution
To know what will be deleted before actually deleting:
git clean -d -n
It will output something like:
Would remove sample.txt
To delete everything listed in the output of the previous command:
git clean -d -f
It will output something like:
Removing sample.txt
Solution
To remove the untracked files you should first use command to view the files that will be affected by cleaning
git clean -fdn
This will show you the list of files that will be deleted. Now to actually delete those files use this command:
git clean -fd
Solution
This is the way.
git add .
git stash
For more information https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes/git-stash#stashing-your-work
Solution
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.
Solution
git clean -f to remove untracked files from working directory.
I have covered some basics here in my blog, git-intro-basic-commands
Solution
Normal git clean
command doesn't remove untracked files with my git version 2.9.0.windows.1
.
$ git clean -fdx # doesn't remove untracked files
$ git clean -fdx * # Append star then it works!
Solution
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
Solution
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)