Git ignore deleted files

Question

I have a website project that has more than 50,000 unimportant files (to development) in some directories.

/website.com/files/1.txt
/website.com/files/2.txt
/website.com/files/3.txt
/website.com/files/etc.txt

The stuff in /files is already in the repo. I want to delete all the files in /files on my local copy but I want git to ignore it so it doesn't delete them when I do a pull on the web server.

Any ideas?

dave1010 · Answer 1 · 2013-01-15T16:12:16.473

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Ignoring a whole directory didn't work. I had to do this:

for i in `git status | grep deleted | awk '{print $3}'`; do git update-index --assume-unchanged $i; done

edited Jan 15 '13 at 16:12

answered Jul 28 '11 at 09:33

dave1010

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I needed to change `$3` to `$2` git version 2.3.2 – crizCraig May 12 '15 at 01:13

score 12 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 30 '23 at 20:09

The code below works on deleted as well as modified files to ignore it when you do a git status.

git update-index --assume-unchanged dir-im-removing/

or a specific file

git update-index --assume-unchanged config/database.yml

Ignore modified (but not committed) files in git?

Beware: The suggestion above for deleted files when you do a "git commit -am " includes the deleted file!

A solution that would work for me is to instead of deleting the file, just make it's content blank. This is what I used to mute a .htaccess file.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 27 '10 at 03:04

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Ok Ive found a solution. Simply create a new repo in the sub directories and the parent repo will ignore them.

answered Apr 27 '10 at 03:04

Petah

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that will work, but it's not ideal to end up with a bunch of branches/repos in multiple projects. going forward could become a pain as your project list gets larger. I do recommend becoming a bit more familiar with `.gitignore` and the index management tools. There's a decent tutorial in my answer above. It really is fairly easy once you try it once... – MaurerPower Jun 03 '12 at 02:36
@MaurerPower, while I appreciate your descriptive answer, `git rm --cached` doesn't fit my requirements. For example if I use that command, then commit and push. When I pull to another server it will still delete the files from that server, even though it did not delete them from the original server. I did a litte test, here are my results: http://pastebin.com/5X0t1KGs – Petah Jun 03 '12 at 03:09

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Creating a sub-repo is one solution, but you should make that sub-repo a submodule.

That way:

you keep a link between your normal content and that 'files' content
if the 'files' content evolves one day, you can register its evolution in the main repo
you can checkout your main repo without " git submodule update " (that is without filling the 'files' content
on deployment, a git submodule update after the git submodule init will be enough to get back the right version of the 'files' content.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 14 '22 at 23:19

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To commit only added / modified files (and NOT removed ones) do:

git add . --ignore-removal
git commit -m "commit message"

answered Nov 14 '22 at 23:19

N. Joppi

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 08 '22 at 15:36

for i in `git status | grep deleted | awk '{print $2}'`; do git update-index --assume-unchanged $i; done

works with git 2.25.1

if you encounter this issue:

fatal: Unable to mark file PATH/TO/FILE

check there is no space in the file path and use quotes instead

Git ignore deleted files

6 Answers6

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