I want to remove a file from my repository.
git rm file_to_remove.txt
will remove the file from the repository, but it will also remove the file from the local file system. How do I remove this file from the repo without deleting my local copy of the file?
The git rm documentation states:
When
--cachedis given, the staged content has to match either the tip of the branch or the file on disk, allowing the file to be removed from just the index.
So, for a single file:
git rm --cached file_to_remove.txt
and for a single directory:
git rm --cached -r directory_to_remove
To remove an entire folder from the repo (like Resharper files), do this:
git rm -r --cached folderName
I had committed some resharper files, and did not want those to persist for other project users.
To remove files from the repository based on .gitignore, without deleting them from the local file system:
git rm --cached `git ls-files -i -c -X .gitignore`
For Windows Powershell:
git rm --cached $(git ls-files -i -c -X .gitignore)
As per my Answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6313126/how-to-remove-a-directory-in-my-github-repository
Steps to remove directory
git rm -r --cached File-or-FolderName
git commit -m "Removed folder from repository"
git push origin master
Steps to ignore that folder in next commits
To ignore that folder from next commits make one file in root named .gitignore and put that folders name into it. You can put as many as you want
.gitignore file will be look like this
/FolderName
A more generic solution:
Edit .gitignore file.
echo mylogfile.log >> .gitignore
Remove all items from index.
git rm -r -f --cached .
Rebuild index.
git add .
Make new commit
git commit -m "Removed mylogfile.log"
Also, if you have commited sensitive data (e.g. a file containing passwords), you should completely delete it from the history of the repository. Here's a guide explaining how to do that: https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/removing-sensitive-data-from-a-repository
Git lets you ignore those files by assuming they are unchanged. This is done by running the
git update-index --assume-unchanged path/to/file.txtcommand. Once marking a file as such, git will completely ignore any changes on that file; they will not show up when running git status or git diff, nor will they ever be committed.
(From https://help.github.com/articles/ignoring-files)
Hence, not deleting it, but ignoring changes to it forever. I think this only works locally, so co-workers can still see changes to it unless they run the same command as above. (Still need to verify this though.)
Note: This isn't answering the question directly, but is based on follow up questions in the comments of the other answers.
If you want to just untrack a file and not delete from local and remote repo then use this command:
git update-index --assume-unchanged file_name_with_path
Note : this does not deal with history for sensitive information.
This process definitely takes some undertanding of what is going on with git. Over time, having gained that, I've learned to do processes such as:
.gitignore to ignore them - in many cases such as yours, the parent directory, e.g. log/ will be the regex to use..gitignore file change (not sure if push needed mind you, no harm if done).git rm --cached some_dir/git add .git commit -m"removal"
Above answers didn't work for me. I used filter-branch to remove all committed files.
Remove a file from a git repository with:
git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm file'
Remove a folder from a git repository with:
git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf directory'
This removes the directory or file from all the commits.
You can specify a commit by using:
git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf directory' HEAD
Or an range:
git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf vendor/gems' t49dse..HEAD
To push everything to remote, you can do:
git push origin master --force
I would like to add to the accepted answer of @bdonlan.
git rm --cached filename
It is supposed to remove some files from the local staged area that you have mistakenly committed in some previous commit(s).
It moves files from Tracked Untracked state by that what I mean is, it deletes the files and adds them again.
So, git doesn't know about them anymore.
Summary: You removed files from staged and then pushed them will result in the deletion of files on the collaborating team's local repository as well ( , will be . )
This depends on what you mean by 'remove' from git. :)
You can unstage a file using git rm --cached see for more details. When you unstage something, it means that it is no longer tracked, but this does not remove the file from previous commits.
If you want to do more than unstage the file, for example to remove sensitive data from all previous commits you will want to look into filtering the branch using tools like the BFG Repo-Cleaner.
since rm --cache will delete files in the remote repository, you could use update-index instead
see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/repos/git/ignore-files?view=azure-devops&tabs=visual-studio-2019
I used the following simple method to remove some IDE-related files from git as they made the repo look cluttered.
Note: This doesn't remove them from the git history.
Note: If you've accidentially committed passwords the first thing to do is change those passwords.
git status and check that the files are not listed.