My initial commit contained some log files. I've added *log
to my .gitignore
, and now I want to remove the log files from my repository.
git rm mylogfile.log
will remove a file from the repository, but will also remove it from the local file system. How can I remove this file from the repo without deleting my local copy of the file?
From the man file:
When --cached is 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 mylogfile.log
and for a single directory:
git rm --cached -r mydirectory
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.
Git Push repo branch
to actually remove the files from the remote.
You can also remove files from the repository based on your .gitignore without deleting them from the local file system :
git rm --cached `git ls-files -i -X .gitignore`
Or, alternatively, on Windows Powershell:
git rm --cached $(git ls-files -i -X .gitignore)
git ls-files -i -X .gitignore | xargs -I{} git rm --cached "{}"
. Please consider modifying or adding this solution to the answer here, because it is a great tool to have...
.gitkeep
which preserves an empty folder in repository. Eg. .gitignore
contain folder uploads
and repo is forced to keep track of .gitkeep
. By removing all from repo under uploads
it will remove also .gitkeep
.
As per my Answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6313126/how-to-remove-a-directory-in-my-github-repository
To remove folder/directory or file only from git repository and not from the local try 3 simple steps.
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
https://i.stack.imgur.com/mJYfF.png
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"
rm --cashed
is that it will eventually delete the file when one pulls - right ? And this is not what people want when they say "Remove a file from the repository without deleting it from the local filesystem". Now why was the solution above accepted is beyond me - probably the OP was working alone and never pulled ? Dunno. I understand the github "once pushed always there" issue ofc
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: http://help.github.com/remove-sensitive-data/
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.txt command. 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
Ignore the files, remove the files from git, update git (for the removal).
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:
1) Ignore the files
Add or update the project .gitignore to ignore them - in many cases such as yours, the parent directory, e.g. log/ will be the regex to use.
commit and push that .gitignore file change (not sure if push needed mind you, no harm if done).
2) Remove the files from git (only).
Now remove the files from git (only) with git rm --cached some_dir/
Check that they still remain locally (they should!).
3) Add and commit that change (essentially this is a change to "add" deleting stuff, despite the otherwise confusing "add" command!)
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
git rm -r --cached NAME
is the trick to remove it from your local git repo and prevent it from affecting anyone who pulls later (by deleting history of the file or directory from git.)
I would like to add to the accepted answer of @bdonlan.
DON'T USE THIS ANSWER TO REMOVE FILE(S) THAT EXISTS ON REMOTE.
git rm --cached filename
What the answer is supposed to do?
It is supposed to remove some files from the local staged area that you have mistakenly committed in some previous commit(s).
And have not pushed to the remote. And if pushed on remote, others don't care about those changes.
It moves files from Tracked 𝐭𝐨 Untracked state by that what I mean is, it deletes the files and adds them again.
So, git doesn't know about them anymore.
What could go wrong?
Why?
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 (𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘪𝘵 will be 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘦. )
git
has all the history available and you can revert back anytime. But the thing is should you do it? Like you delete your collaborator's file while you have that file available locally? In my case, the lead trusts me and merges my PR blindly. The application wasn't working on his machine while it was working on mine. Think about this scenario!
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://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/repos/git/ignore-files?view=azure-devops&tabs=visual-studio-2019
Success story sharing
svn rm --keep-local
.git pull
if you are behind the commit aftergit rm
git commit -m "Commit message"
andgit push
. If you have any other staged changes (check withgit status
), they will also be committed at this time.git rm --cached mylogfile.log
and delete the file from the repository. To avoid losing the file on productive system i do a backup of the file and pull after this. The file get's deleted as mentioned before and need to be copied back from your backup. This is quite a pain, but i found no better solution for this problem.