exclude from tracking with .gitignore not working

Question

I'm trying to remove all files in "js" folder from being tracked.

Here is my .gitignore:

# See http://help.github.com/ignore-files/ for more about ignoring files.

# compiled output
/dist
/tmp


# dependencies

# IDEs and editors
/.idea

# misc
/.sass-cache
/connect.lock
/coverage/*
/libpeerconnection.log
npm-debug.log
testem.log
/typings

# e2e
/e2e/*.js
/e2e/*.map

# js
js/


#System Files
.DS_Store

node_modules/
bower_components/
.sass-cache/
images/
app/test/reportscreenshots/
app/test/report/

Note the js/ it is not removing files in that folder from being tracked. Here is my folder structure:

Why does my .gitignore not exclude files in "js" folder from being tracked?

Did you previously add that JS folder to your repository? If so, then you will need to use `git rm --cached` before you can ignore it. — Tim Biegeleisen, Dec 22 '16 at 04:36

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:33

If the folder was already tracked before, adding it to .gitignore won't untracked it.

You will also need to remove the file/directory from your git repo

git rm --cached -r mydirectory

--cached will remove it from gitrepo but not from the server. From this StackOverflow question

After that, if you git status, you will see the deleted folder in the status. You will need to commit your deletion.

exclude from tracking with .gitignore not working

1 Answers1