This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.ĭon’t use the standard ignore rules read from.

If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. This is the online help text for the used git clean options: # ERASE changes in tracked files (in the current directory) # REMOVE ignored/untracked files (in the current directory) # dry-run to inspect the list of files-to-be-removed Since no answer suggests the exact option combination that I use, here it is: git clean -dxn. So Mariusz Nowak's answer still applies and if you want to discard all unstaged changes, including untracked files, you could run, as he suggests, an additional git clean -df. , this only discards changes in tracked files. When running git status with unstaged changes in the working tree, this is now what Git suggests to use to discard them (instead of git checkout - as it used to prior to v2.23).git checkout still behaves as it used to and the older answers remain perfectly valid.git restore was introduced in July 2019 and released in version 2.23 as part of a split of the git checkout command into git restore for files and git switch for branches.If you run the latter from the root of the repository, it will discard unstaged changes in all tracked files in the project. An example use case for this could be when you want to clean out a folder that contains build artifacts.You can now discard unstaged changes in one tracked file with: git restore Īnd in all tracked files in the current directory (recursively) with: git restore. In some situations, you might also - in addition to untracked files - want to delete any ignored files. If you want to include them, you can use the '-d' flag: $ git clean -fd If you want to only delete untracked files in a certain subdirectory of your project, you can additionally specify a path: $ git clean -f folder/subfolderīy default, folders themselves will no be deleted. To actually allow git clean to delete files in your working copy, you'll have to use the 'force' option: $ git clean -f If this looks correct, you can proceed without the safety catch. 'Dry run' means that Git will not actually perform any deletions, but it only tells you which files would be deleted. This is why the first step when approaching git clean is to make use of its 'dry run' functionality using the '-n' flag: $ git clean -n Whatever options and parameters you provide: using git clean will only affect untracked files - in our example img/iconFacebook.png and login.html - and leave anything else untouched.īefore you use git clean to delete untracked files, you should remember an important detail: untracked files, by definition, aren't included in version control - and this means that when you delete them, you will not be able to restore them! ' to discard changes in working directory) Let's take a look at an example scenario: $ git status To get rid of new / untracked files, you'll have to use git clean! Usage Examples and Options files that already are under version control). git reset -hard is a classic command in this situation - but it will only discard changes in tracked files (i.e. Let's say you've programmed yourself into a dead end and want to start over, with a clean working copy. (Take a look at our First Aid Kit video series for other commands and workflows to undo mistakes.)Ĭompared to reset or revert, which are also classic undo commands, git clean is different: it targets untracked files that haven't been added to version control, yet. The clean command is one of Git's many 'undo' tools. How to remove untracked files with git clean

Discard changes git