.gitignore exclude folder but include specific subfolder

If you exclude application/, then everything under it will always be excluded (even if some later negative exclusion pattern (“unignore”) might match something under application/).

To do what you want, you have to “unignore” every parent directory of anything that you want to “unignore”. Usually you end up writing rules for this situation in pairs: ignore everything in a directory, but not some certain subdirectory.

# you can skip this first one if it is not already excluded by prior patterns
!application/

application/*
!application/language/

application/language/*
!application/language/gr/

Note
The trailing /* is significant:

The pattern dir/ excludes a directory named dir and (implicitly) everything under it. With dir/, Git will never look at anything under dir, and thus will never apply any of the “un-exclude” patterns to anything under dir.

The pattern dir/* says nothing about dir itself; it just excludes everything under dir. With dir/*, Git will process the direct contents of dir, giving other patterns a chance to “un-exclude” some bit of the content (!dir/sub/).

---

Commit 59856de from Karsten Blees (kblees) for Git 1.9/2.0 (Q1 2014) clarifies that case:

gitignore.txt: clarify recursive nature of excluded directories

An optional prefix "!" which negates the pattern; any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded. (*) (*: unless certain conditions are met in git 2.8+, see below) Git doesn't list excluded directories for performance reasons, so any patterns on contained files have no effect, no matter where they are defined. Put a backslash ("\") in front of the first "!" for patterns that begin with a literal "!", for example, "\!important!.txt". Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo/bar (note the /* - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything within foo/bar):

 --------------------------------------------------------------
     $ cat .gitignore
     # exclude everything except directory foo/bar
     /*
     !/foo
     /foo/*
     !/foo/bar
 --------------------------------------------------------------

In your case:

application/*
!application/**/
application/language/*
!application/language/**/
!application/language/gr/**

You must white-list folders first, before being able to white-list files within a given folder.

Update Feb/March 2016:

Note that with git 2.9.x/2.10 (mid 2016?), it might be possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded if there is no wildcard in the path re-included.

Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy (pclouds) is trying to add this feature:

commit 506d8f1 for git v2.7.0, reverted in commit 76b620d git v2.8.0-rc0

commit 5e57f9c git v2.8.0-rc0,... reverted(!) in commit 5cee3493 git 2.8.0.

So with git 2.9+, this could have actually worked, but was ultimately reverted:

application/
!application/language/gr/

---

@Chris Johnsen's answer is great, but with a newer versions of Git (1.8.2 or later), there is a double asterisk pattern you can leverage for a bit more shorthand solution:

# assuming the root folder you want to ignore is 'application'
application/**/*

# the subfolder(s) you want to track:
!application/language/gr/

This way you don't have to "unignore" parent directory of the subfolder you want to track.

With Git 2.17.0 (Not sure how early before this version. Possibly back to 1.8.2), using the ** pattern combined with excludes for each subdirectory leading up to your file(s) works. For example:

# assuming the root folder you want to ignore is 'application'
application/**

# Explicitly track certain content nested in the 'application' folder:
!application/language/
!application/language/gr/
!application/language/gr/** # Example adding all files & folder in the 'gr' folder
!application/language/gr/SomeFile.txt # Example adding specific file in the 'gr' folder

---

I've found only this actually works.

**/node_modules/*
!**/node_modules/keep-dir

---

There are a bunch of similar questions about this, so I'll post what I wrote before:

The only way I got this to work on my machine was to do it this way:

# Ignore all directories, and all sub-directories, and it's contents:
*/*

#Now ignore all files in the current directory 
#(This fails to ignore files without a ".", for example 
#'file.txt' works, but 
#'file' doesn't):
*.*

#Only Include these specific directories and subdirectories:
!wordpress/
!wordpress/*/
!wordpress/*/wp-content/
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*/*/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*/*/*/*

Notice how you have to explicitly allow content for each level you want to include. So if I have subdirectories 5 deep under themes, I still need to spell that out.

This is from @Yarin's comment here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/5250314/1696153

These were useful topics:

How do negated patterns work in .gitignore?

How do gitignore exclusion rules actually work?

I also tried

*
*/*
**/**

and **/wp-content/themes/**

or /wp-content/themes/**/*

None of that worked for me, either. Lots of trial and error!

---

The simplest and probably best way is to try adding the files manually (generally this takes precedence over .gitignore-style rules):

git add /path/to/module

You might need -f if the file is already ignored. You may even want the -N intent to add flag, to suggest you will add them, but not immediately. I often do this for new files I’m not ready to stage yet.

This a copy of an answer posted on what could easily be a duplicate QA. I am reposting it here for increased visibility—I find it easier not to have a mess of gitignore rules.

---

I have found a similar case here, where in laravel by default, .gitignore ignores all using asterix, then overrides the public directory. ( This is also the same solution as the main answer @Chris Johnsen, just a bit thinner and more concise maybe.)

*
!public
!.gitignore

This is not sufficient if you run into the OP scenario.

If you want to commit a specific subfolders of public, say for e.g. in your public/products directory you want to include files that are one subfolder deep e.g. to include public/products/a/b.jpg they wont be detected correctly, even if you add them specifically like this !/public/products, !public/products/*, etc..

The solution is to make sure you add an entry for every path level like this to override them all.

*
!.gitignore
!public/
!public/*/
!public/products/
!public/products/*
!public/products/*/
!public/products/*/
!public/products/*/*

---

add a file named .gitignore to subfolder, then fill with

!/Bin/

this works for me!

---

So , since many programmers uses node . the use case which meets this question is to exclude node_modules except one module module-a for example:

!node_modules/

node_modules/*
!node_modules/module-a/

---

Add an additional answer:

!/.vs/              <== include this folder to source control, folder only, nothing else
/.vs/*              <== but ignore all files and sub-folder inside this folder
!/.vs/ProjectSettings.json <== but include this file to source control
!/.vs/config/       <== then include this folder to source control, folder only, nothing else
!/.vs/config/*      <== then include all files inside the folder

here is result:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/bnJ99.png

---

I wanted to track Nagios configuration files located in /etc/nagios/ together with the plugins in /usr/lib64/nagios/plugins/. For this I have initialized a git repo in / and used the following exclusion list:

/*
!etc
etc/*
!etc/nagios
!usr
usr/*
!usr/lib64
usr/lib64/*
!usr/lib64/nagios
usr/lib64/nagios/*
!usr/lib64/nagios/plugins

Git walks down the list like that:

/*             exclude everything under / ...
!etc           but include /etc back
etc/*             exclude everything under /etc/...
!etc/nagios       but include /etc/nagios back
!usr           but include /usr back
usr/*             exclude everything under /usr/...
                  and so on...

---

Especially for the older Git versions, most of the suggestions won't work that well. If that's the case, I'd put a separate .gitignore in the directory where I want the content to be included regardless of other settings and allow there what is needed.

For example: /.gitignore

# ignore all .dll files
*.dll

/dependency_files/.gitignore

# include everything
!*

So everything in /dependency_files (even .dll files) are included just fine.

---

In WordPress, this helped me:

wp-admin/
wp-includes/
/wp-content/*
!wp-content/plugins/
/wp-content/plugins/*
!/wp-content/plugins/plugin-name/
!/wp-content/plugins/plugin-name/*.*
!/wp-content/plugins/plugin-name/**

---

gitignore - Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore.

Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo/bar (note the /* - without the slash, the wildcard would also exclude everything within foo/bar):

$ cat .gitignore
# exclude everything except directory foo/bar
/*
!/foo
/foo/*
!/foo/bar

Another example for WordPress:

!/wp-content
wp-content/*
!/wp-content/plugins
wp-content/plugins/*
!wp-content/plugins/my-awesome-plugin

More informations in here: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore

---

my JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA .gitignore configuration, where I need exclude wholde .idea folder except .idea/runConfigurations:

.idea
!.idea/
.idea/*
!.idea/runConfigurations/

see: https://github.com/daggerok/gitignore-idea-runConfigurations

---

Just another example of walking down the directory structure to get exactly what you want. Note: I didn't exclude Library/ but Library/**/*

# .gitignore file
Library/**/*
!Library/Application Support/
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/*macro
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/*snippet
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/*settings
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/*keymap
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/*theme
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/**/
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/**/*macro
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/**/*snippet
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/**/*settings
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/**/*keymap
!Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/**/*theme

> git add Library

> git status

On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/Default (OSX).sublime-keymap
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/ElixirSublime.sublime-settings
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/Package Control.sublime-settings
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/Preferences.sublime-settings
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/RESTer.sublime-settings
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/SublimeLinter/Monokai (SL).tmTheme
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/TextPastryHistory.sublime-settings
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/ZenTabs.sublime-settings
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/adrian-comment.sublime-macro
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/json-pretty-generate.sublime-snippet
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/raise-exception.sublime-snippet
    new file:   Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/trailing_spaces.sublime-settings

---

This worked for me:

**/.idea/**
!**/.idea/copyright/
!.idea/copyright/profiles_settings.xml
!.idea/copyright/Copyright.xml

---

I wanted to track jquery production js files and this worked:

node_modules/*
!node_modules/jquery
node_modules/jquery/*
!node_modules/jquery/dist/*

---

I often use this workaround in CLI where instead of configuring my .gitignore, I create a separate .include file where I define the (sub)directories I want included in spite of directories directly or recursively ignored by .gitignore.

Thus, I additionally use

git add `cat .include`

during staging, before committing.

To the OP, I suggest using a .include which has these lines:

<parent_folder_path>/application/language/gr/*

NOTE: Using cat does not allow usage of aliases (within .include) for specifying $HOME (or any other specific directory). This is because the line homedir/app1/* when passed to git add using the above command appears as git add 'homedir/app1/*', and enclosing characters in single quotes ('') preserves the literal value of each character within the quotes, thus preventing aliases (such as homedir) from functioning (see Bash Single Quotes).

Here is an example of a .include file I use in my repo here.

/home/abhirup/token.txt
/home/abhirup/.include
/home/abhirup/.vim/*
/home/abhirup/.viminfo
/home/abhirup/.bashrc
/home/abhirup/.vimrc
/home/abhirup/.condarc

---

Similar to this comment, none of the solutions and patterns worked for me; forcing git to add the files and folders that should be excluded, worked:

git add -f .

---