1779

How can I remove those annoying Mac OS X .DS_Store files from a Git repository?

2

32 Answers 32

3434

Remove existing .DS_Store files from the repository:

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm -f --ignore-unmatch

Add this line:

.DS_Store

to the file .gitignore, which can be found at the top level of your repository (or create the file if it isn't there already). You can do this easily with this command in the top directory:

echo .DS_Store >> .gitignore

Then commit the file to the repo:

git add .gitignore
git commit -m '.DS_Store banished!'
29
  • 20
    It's really trivial, but using -exec will launch git-rm once for every .DS_Store file, while xargs will put all the paths on one command line. Mostly I prefer xargs because I don't have to worry about escaping a lot of special characters.
    – benzado
    Commented Sep 21, 2008 at 7:13
  • 10
    This should use .git/info/exclude, not .gitignore. See stackoverflow.com/questions/1753070/… for an explanation of the difference between the two. Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 5:35
  • 124
    @Andrew: I don't agree. It would never be useful for a .DS_Store file to be checked in, so it makes more sense as a repository-wide, all-users setting, rather than something each Mac user needs to remember to set on her own machine.
    – benzado
    Commented Dec 30, 2009 at 19:27
  • 75
    Does adding .DS_Store to .gitignore work recursively? That is, will it ignore some/level/of/folders/.DS_Store as well? Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 16:35
  • 91
    @CharlieS Yes, if the pattern does not contain a slash, it is matched against the file name in all directories.
    – benzado
    Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 17:02
289

Combining benzado and webmat's answers, updating with git rm, not failing on files found that aren't in repo, and making it paste-able generically for any user:

# remove any existing files from the repo, skipping over ones not in repo
find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm --ignore-unmatch
# specify a global exclusion list
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
# adding .DS_Store to that list
echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore
1
  • 3
    I found that when using a git repo in my home directory (AKA a "dotfiles" repo), having ~/.gitignore as my global excludes file is a pain. There are files that I want to exclude from my home directory that I don't want to ignore globally. I use ~/.gitexcludes instead via the same directive: core.excludesfile
    – AL the X
    Commented May 18, 2015 at 21:35
223

The best solution to tackle this issue is to Globally ignore these files from all the git repos on your system. This can be done by creating a global gitignore file like:

vi ~/.gitignore_global

Adding Rules for ignoring files like:

# Compiled source #
###################
*.com
*.class
*.dll
*.exe
*.o
*.so

# Packages #
############
# it's better to unpack these files and commit the raw source
# git has its own built in compression methods
*.7z
*.dmg
*.gz
*.iso
*.jar
*.rar
*.tar
*.zip

# Logs and databases #
######################
*.log
*.sql
*.sqlite

# OS generated files #
######################
.DS_Store
.DS_Store?
._*
.Spotlight-V100
.Trashes
ehthumbs.db
Thumbs.db

Now, add this file to your global git config:

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

Edit:

Removed Icons as they might need to be committed as application assets.

6
  • You can also add above rules in your repository's .gitignore. This would keep away these files at repo level if there are multiple contributors to your project. However, in such cases, .gitignore should deal with every OS' specific files etc if different developers are using different OS. Like rules for linux, OSX etc.
    – Nerve
    Commented Jul 13, 2013 at 19:15
  • 4
    I would recommend that each developer deals with his os specific files in his own .global_ignore, that way the project .gitignore is project specific.
    – mcfedr
    Commented Aug 8, 2013 at 7:54
  • must run: git add .gitignore_global , in order another programmers have that file too in his local environment ?
    – stackdave
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 14:51
  • @stackdave No. That file isn't even under git control. That's in the home directory and they would have to update their git config too. There isn't even a reason to do it this way. No need to make a new file when there already exists the files for the same purpose. Each directory can have a .gitignore and there's also the repo specific info/exclude. Also - though I'm vague on this one - I think you can use ~/.gitignore too (not certain!). Oh and I have repos that have .jar files and .log files too so that could be a problem for some (and I imagine other people different extensions added here).
    – Pryftan
    Commented Jun 8, 2020 at 17:13
  • As I am new to get I find this to be a fantastic resource for me at first glance, but I was wondering if there is a video or article someone could point me to so I can understand the reasons behind why the file types are typically ignored. Thanks in advance!
    – timSully
    Commented Jan 19, 2021 at 22:32
67

In some situations you may also want to ignore some files globally. For me, .DS_Store is one of them. Here's how:

git config --global core.excludesfile /Users/mat/.gitignore

(Or any file of your choice)

Then edit the file just like a repo's .gitignore. Note that I think you have to use an absolute path.

55

Sometimes .DS_Store files are there at remote repository, but not visible at your local project folders. To fix this, we need to remove all cached files and add again.

Step 1: Add this to .gitignore file.

# Ignore Mac DS_Store files
.DS_Store
**/.DS_Store

Step 2: Remove the cached files and add again using these commands.

git rm -r --cached .
git add .
git commit -am "Removed git ignored files"
git push -f origin master
2
  • 8
    **/.DS_Store line is not needed actually, adding .DS_Store is enough.
    – Can
    Commented Aug 24, 2022 at 14:29
  • No it isn't enough. Because it keeps in sub directories. Commented Jan 12 at 19:52
53

If you are unable to remove the files because they have changes staged use:

git rm --cached -f *.DS_Store
1
  • 3
    For me this worked out: git rm --cached -f .DS_Store
    – Pei
    Commented Jun 2, 2022 at 2:09
49

The best way to get rid of this file forever:

Make a global .gitignore file:

echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore_global

Let Git know that you want to use this file for all of your repositories:

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

That’s it! .DS_Store will be ignored in all repositories.

1
  • This is great as it affects all repos and I didn't even had to change the repo .gitignore (saving a PR) Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 10:58
31

Top voted answer is awesome, but helping out the rookies like me, here is how to create the .gitignore file, edit it, save it, remove the files you might have already added to git, then push up the file to Github.

Create the .gitignore file

To create a .gitignore file, you can just touch the file which creates a blank file with the specified name. We want to create the file named .gitignore so we can use the command:

touch .gitignore

Ignore the files

Now you have to add the line which tells git to ignore the DS Store files to your .gitignore. You can use the nano editor to do this.

nano .gitignore

Nano is nice because it includes instructions on how to get out of it. (Ctrl-O to save, Ctrl-X to exit)

Copy and paste some of the ideas from this Github gist which lists some common files to ignore. The most important ones, to answer this question, would be:

# OS generated files #
######################
.DS_Store
.DS_Store?

The # are comments, and will help you organize your file as it grows.

This Github article also has some general ideas and guidelines.

Remove the files already added to git

Finally, you need to actually remove those DS Store files from your directory.

Use this great command from the top voted answer. This will go through all the folders in your directory, and remove those files from git.

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm -f --ignore-unmatch

Push .gitignore up to Github

Last step, you need to actually commit your .gitignore file.

git status

git add .gitignore

git commit -m '.DS_Store banished!'

3
  • 5
    the touch command in your steps isn't necessary... nano will create the file for you. Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 3:18
  • 13
    I found my own answer 2 years later and used it. Good work past me. :) Commented Dec 4, 2019 at 6:45
  • 1
    Worked perfectly!! Thanks
    – iUser
    Commented May 7, 2020 at 15:06
26

Open terminal and type "cd < ProjectPath >"

  1. Remove existing files: find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm -f --ignore-unmatch

  2. nano .gitignore

  3. Add this .DS_Store

  4. type "ctrl + x"

  5. Type "y"

  6. Enter to save file

  7. git add .gitignore

  8. git commit -m '.DS_Store removed.'

2
  • nano .gitignore creates the file if not present, this command should be executed from project root folder
    – Saif
    Commented Aug 2, 2017 at 7:44
  • 1
    @Saif Not necessarily. You can have .gitignore in any directory where you want to exclude some files in a subdirectory but not the root directory. I have this in a number of my repos for example.
    – Pryftan
    Commented Jun 8, 2020 at 17:16
25

If .DS_Store was never added to your git repository, simply add it to your .gitignore file.

If you don't have one, create a file called

.gitignore

In your the root directory of your app and simply write

.DS_Store
._.DS_Store
**/.DS_Store
**/._.DS_Store

In it. This will never allow the .DS_Store file to sneak in your git.

if it's already there, write in your terminal:

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm -f --ignore-unmatch

then commit and push the changes to remove the .DS_Store from your remote repo:

git commit -m "Remove .DS_Store from everywhere"
git push origin master

And now add .DS_Store to your .gitignore file, and then again commit and push with the 2 last pieces of code (git commit..., git push...)

Other Solution

If .DS_Store already committed:

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm --ignore-unmatch

To ignore them in all repository: (sometimes it named ._.DS_Store)

echo ".DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
echo "._.DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
echo "**/.DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
echo "**/._.DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global
1
19

I had to change git-rm to git rm in the above to get it to work:

find . -depth -name '.DS_Store' -exec git rm --cached '{}' \; -print
19

Use this command to remove the existing files:

find . -name '*.DS_Store' -type f -delete

Then add .DS_Store to .gitignore

13

In case you want to remove DS_Store files to every folder and subfolder:


In case of already committed DS_Store:

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm --ignore-unmatch

Ignore them by:

echo ".DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
echo "._.DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
echo "**/.DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
echo "**/._.DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global
13

Step 1

This will remove every .DS_Store file in a directory (including subdirectories)

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm -f --ignore-unmatch

Step 2

Add this to .gitignore to prevent any DS_Store files in the root directory and every subdirectory from going to git!

**/.DS_Store

From the git docs:

  • A leading "**" followed by a slash means match in all directories. For example, "**/foo" matches file or directory "foo" anywhere, the same as pattern "foo". "**/foo/bar" matches file or directory "bar" anywhere that is directly under directory "foo".
1
  • 1
    Working perfectly! Commented Apr 18, 2022 at 6:30
10

delete them using git-rm, and then add .DS_Store to .gitignore to stop them getting added again. You can also use blueharvest to stop them getting created all together

0
9

The following worked best for me. Handled unmatched files, and files with local modifications. For reference, this was on a Mac 10.7 system running git 1.7.4.4.

Find and remove:

find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm --ignore-unmatch -f

I also globally ignore .DS_Store across all repositories by setting a global core.excludesfile.

First, create the file (if one doesn't already exist):

touch ~/.gitignore

Then add the following line and save:

.DS_Store

Now configure git to respect the file globally:

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
7

I'm a bit late to the party, but I have a good answer. To remove the .DS_Store files, use the following commands from a terminal window, but be very careful deleting files with 'find'. Using a specific name with the -name option is one of the safer ways to use it:

cd directory/above/affected/workareas
find . -name .DS_Store -delete

You can leave off the "-delete" if you want to simply list them before and after. That will reassure you that they're gone.

With regard to the ~/.gitignore_global advice: be careful here. You want to place that nice file into .gitignore within the top level of each workarea and commit it, so that anyone who clones your repo will gain the benefit of its use.

1
  • Indeed: whenever you are going to do a destructive command it is arguably best to start out by printing the files that will be affected before actually doing the destructive command. It can save you a great deal of pain (esp if you're one who doesn't backup though even those of us who regularly backup can be saved time this way)!
    – Pryftan
    Commented Jun 8, 2020 at 17:21
7

I found that the following line from snipplr does best on wiping all .DS_Store, including one that has local modifications.

find . -depth -name '.DS_Store' -exec git-rm --cached '{}' \; -print

--cached option, keeps your local .DS_Store since it gonna be reproduced anyway.

And just like mentioned all above, add .DS_Store to .gitignore file on the root of your project. Then it will be no longer in your sight (of repos).

6

This will work:

find . -name "*.DS_Store" -type f -exec git-rm {} \;

It deletes all files whose names end with .DS_Store, including ._.DS_Store.

4
  • 3
    The asterisk should not be in there. Commented Sep 20, 2008 at 17:01
  • 3
    asterisk should be there because i found .DS_Store and ._.DS_Store files on my mac system. Commented May 20, 2014 at 9:52
  • 3
    @MutantMahesh. In that case, you need "*.DS_Store", so that the asterisk is passed to find rather than expanded by the shell.
    – TRiG
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 18:38
  • git-rm not found
    – Gargo
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 7:55
6

For some reason none of the above worked on my mac.

My solution is from the terminal run:

rm .DS_Store

Then run following command:

git pull origin master
2
  • 1
    that's because you are trying to remove it from the local. whereas the question asks about to remove it from git. Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 11:08
  • One day I upvoted the answer and now I am here again, investigated more deeply and it is turned out gitignore has specific setup in our project. So .DS_Store files are not ignored under a couple of directories only. That is why none of the above did not help(e.g. gitignore has the highest priority over other places like global config or exclude). Commented Nov 24, 2022 at 15:34
5

Remove ignored files:

(.DS_Store)

$ find . -name .DS_Store -print0 | xargs -0 git rm --ignore-unmatch
4

When initializing your repository, skip the git command that contains

-u

and it shouldn't be an issue.

1
  • 1
    What if someone else created the repo, and OP is only sync'ing with it?
    – jww
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 17:23
4

This worked for me, combo of two answers from above:

  • $ git rm --cached -f *.DS_Store
  • $ git commit -m "filter-branch --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch .DS_Store"
  • $ git push origin master --force
4

create a .gitignore file using command touch .gitignore

and add the following lines in it

.DS_Store

save the .gitignore file and then push it in to your git repo.

0
3
$ git commit -m "filter-branch --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch .DS_Store"
$ git push origin master --force
3

add this to your file .gitignore

#Ignore folder mac
.DS_Store

save this and make commit

git add -A
git commit -m "ignore .DS_Store"

and now you ignore this for all your commits

2

No need to remove .DS_STORE locally

Just add it to .gitignore file

The .gitignore file is just a text file that tells Git which files or folders to ignore in a project.

Commands

  • nano .gitignore
  • Write .DS_Store Then click CTRL+X > y > Hit Return
  • git status To have a last look at your changes
  • git add .gitignore
  • git commit -m 'YOUR COMMIT MESSAGE'
  • git push origin master
1

There are a few solutions to resolve this problem. To avoid creating .DS_Store files, do not to use the OS X Finder to view folders. An alternative way to view folders is to use UNIX command line. To remove the .DS_Store files a third-party product called DS_Store Terminator can be used. To delete the .DS_Store files from the entire system a UNIX shell command can be used. Launch Terminal from Applications:Utilities At the UNIX shell prompt enter the following UNIX command: sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \; When prompted for a password enter the Mac OS X Administrator password.

This command is to find and remove all occurrences of .DS_Store starting from the root (/) of the file system through the entire machine. To configure this command to run as a scheduled task follow the steps below: Launch Terminal from Applications:Utilities At the UNIX shell prompt enter the following UNIX command:

sudo crontab -e When prompted for a password enter the Mac OS X Administrator password. Once in the vi editor press the letter I on your keyboard once and enter the following:

15 1 * * * root find / -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \;

This is called crontab entry, which has the following format:

Minute Hour DayOfMonth Month DayOfWeek User Command.

The crontab entry means that the command will be executed by the system automatically at 1:15 AM everyday by the account called root.

The command starts from find all the way to . If the system is not running this command will not get executed.

To save the entry press the Esc key once, then simultaneously press Shift + z+ z.

Note: Information in Step 4 is for the vi editor only.

0

For those who have not been helped by any of the above methods - try to inspect your .gitignore more thoroughly, it could have some combination of rules between directories and subdirectories so the annoying .DS_Store files are not ignored in those folders only. For instance you want to ignore gensrc folders except ones in a custom directories, so you would have the following .gitignore:

.DS_Store
gensrc
!custom/**

So with this setup any/path/.DS_Store ignored, but not custom/gensrc/.DS_Store and the fix will be moving .DS_Store entry to the bottom of .gitignore file.

0

I found a nice oneliner to get rid of this for good via global .gitignore file, therefore you will never need this thread again

git config --global core.excludesfile "~/.gitignore" &&  echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore

This oneliner creates a global .gitignore used by every single repository and all the new ones you create in the future and ignores the .DS_Store file entirely.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.