571

When I do a merge conflict resolution with Kdiff3 (and other merge tool I tried) I noticed that on resolution a *.orig file is created. Is there a way for it to not create that extra file?

Andrew C
  • 13,845
  • 6
  • 50
  • 57
Akeem
  • 7,897
  • 5
  • 32
  • 41

11 Answers11

897

A possible solution from git config:

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

After performing a merge, the original file with conflict markers can be saved as a file with a .orig extension.
If this variable is set to false then this file is not preserved.
Defaults to true (i.e. keep the backup files).

The alternative being not adding or ignoring those files, as suggested in this gitguru article,

git mergetool saves the merge-conflict version of the file with a “.orig” suffix.
Make sure to delete it before adding and committing the merge or add *.orig to your .gitignore.

Berik suggests in the comments to use:

find . -name \*.orig 
find . -name \*.orig -delete

Charles Bailey advises in his answer to be aware of internal diff tool settings which could also generate those backup files, no matter what git settings are.

  • kdiff3 has its own settings (see "Directory merge" in its manual).
  • other tools like WinMerge can have their own backup file extension (WinMerge: .bak, as mentioned in its manual).

So you need to reset those settings as well.

VonC
  • 1,262,500
  • 529
  • 4,410
  • 5,250
  • 18
    Editing the settings in kdiff itself worked for me: Settings > Configure Kdiff3 > Directory. Uncheck the box labeled "Backup files (.orig)" – kmgdev Sep 05 '13 at 18:46
  • 2
    `git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false`, Solved for P4Merge on Mavericks 10.9.2. Thanks :) – kpsfoo Apr 08 '14 at 23:57
  • found a set of `.gitignore` for opendiff generated files [in here](https://github.com/sebreh/SBRXCallbackURLKit/blob/master/.gitignore). may be useful for someone ;) – Hlung May 22 '14 at 09:05
  • @Hlung Interesting. That should be added or referenced in https://github.com/github/gitignore or http://www.gitignore.io/ – VonC May 22 '14 at 09:09
  • just want to note that this works for me using 'meld' as well. – skift Jan 04 '15 at 05:17
  • 6
    Note that if you're manually editing your .gitconfig, you want the `keepBackup = false` under `[mergetool]`, not under `[mergetool "BeyondCompare4"]` or whatever visual merge tool you have configured. – TrueWill Sep 19 '16 at 19:19
  • git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false, solved for DiffMerge the problem too! Many thanks! It was so useful – harryssuperman Jan 13 '17 at 09:46
  • You may want to use `find . -name \*.orig` to find these files and `find . -name \*.orig -delete` to delete them – Berik Oct 12 '17 at 15:36
  • I have been using `git clean -f` to remove unwanted `.orig` files. This may be a simpler move, but is probably an indicator of how little I know about git. – Tim Randall Sep 20 '18 at 13:11
  • `rm ./**/*.orig` is a shorter alternative to the find command. – Benjamin Hammer Nørgaard Sep 26 '19 at 09:02
  • @BenjaminHammerNørgaard True. But I always prefer to `find` (list files) first, check that what I am about to delete is indeed what I want, *then* delete it. Using `rm` with wildcards (`*` or `**`) is anxiety-inducing for me ;) – VonC Sep 26 '19 at 09:06
  • @VonC but if you are in a git repo it's not that hard to undo a mistake. Just don't forget the `.`. Wouldn't be too good to do `rm /**/*.orig`. – Benjamin Hammer Nørgaard Sep 27 '19 at 10:03
94

You have to be a little careful with using kdiff3 as while git mergetool can be configured to save a .orig file during merging, the default behaviour for kdiff3 is to also save a .orig backup file independently of git mergetool.

You have to make sure that mergetool backup is off:

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

and also that kdiff3's settings are set to not create a backup:

Configure/Options => Directory Merge => Backup Files (*.orig)
CB Bailey
  • 755,051
  • 104
  • 632
  • 656
  • 4
    `Configure/Options => Directory Merge => Backup Files (*.orig)` really helped get rid of all the strange io-slave, klauncher «» unknown protocol, and couldn't create .orig errors. thank you – Geremia Jun 22 '16 at 20:10
  • 2
    Why does `git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false` have to be set? – Geremia Jun 22 '16 at 20:12
  • 1
    let me fix your first line "You have to be a little crazy to use kdiff3" - there :-) – Tim Jarvis Jan 25 '19 at 03:15
  • 1
    @TimJarvis I use kdiff3 all the time and I like it. I wonder if there is a reason for calling it "a little crazy to use kdiff3" or if that is just joking (I see the smiley face, I won't be offended either way, I'm earnestly asking) – Quinn Wilson Mar 05 '20 at 14:32
  • @QuinnWilson It was mostly just a joke - there are many better tools than kdiff3 though, if you like it you will probably absolutely love tools like p4Merge etc. – Tim Jarvis Jun 17 '20 at 03:57
40

To be clear, the correct git command is:

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

Both of the other answers have typos in the command line that will cause it to fail or not work correctly.

John
  • 29,546
  • 11
  • 78
  • 79
39

The option to save the .orig file can be disabled by configuring KDiff3

KDiff3 Backup file .orig option

xx1xx
  • 1,834
  • 17
  • 16
25

I use this to clean up all files ending in ".orig":

function git-clean-orig {
    git status -su | grep -e"\.orig$" | cut -f2 -d" " | xargs rm -r
}

If you are a scaredy-cat :) you could leave the last part off just to list them (or leave off the -r if you want to approve each delete):

function git-show-orig {
    git status -su | grep -e"\.orig$" | cut -f2 -d" "
}
kghastie
  • 739
  • 1
  • 7
  • 14
21

I simply use the command 

git clean -n *.orig

check to make sure only file I want remove are listed then

git clean -f *.orig
Rodneyk
  • 211
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
    A good tip! It would be good if you also added the other answers regarding gitconfig settings (from other answers). – AzP Feb 11 '19 at 15:21
9

Besides the correct answers offered as long term solutions, you can use git to remove all unnecessary files once for you with the git clean -f command but use git clean --dry-run first to ensure nothing unintended would happen.

This has the benefit of using tested built in functionality of Git over scripts specific to your OS/shell to remove the files.

haleonj
  • 1,438
  • 3
  • 16
  • 30
7

Or just add

*.orig

to your global gitignore

cd491415
  • 823
  • 2
  • 14
  • 33
3
git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

This should work for Beyond Compare (as mergetool) too

Atul
  • 81
  • 7
2

If you're working on a Windows machine - you can turn off backups with this command

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

If you don't want to do that, you can easily delete all the .orig files using this powershell command

ls -Recurse C:\path\to\repository\*.orig | rm
Kellen Stuart
  • 7,775
  • 7
  • 59
  • 82
0

Windows:

  1. in File Win/Users/HOME/.gitconfig set mergetool.keepTemporaries=false
  2. in File git/libexec/git-core/git-mergetool, in the function cleanup_temp_files() add rm -rf -- "$MERGED.orig" within the else block.
pagid
  • 13,559
  • 11
  • 78
  • 104
michal
  • 11