How do I delete untracked local files from the current working tree?
43 Answers
git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree
Synopsis
git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>…Description
Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not under version control, starting from the current directory.
Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the
-xoption is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be useful to remove all build products.If any optional
<path>...arguments are given, only those paths are affected.
Step 1 is to show what will be deleted by using the -n option:
# Print out the list of files and directories which will be removed (dry run)
git clean -n -d
Clean Step - beware: this will delete files:
# Delete the files from the repository
git clean -f
- To remove directories, run
git clean -f -dorgit clean -fd - To remove ignored files, run
git clean -f -Xorgit clean -fX - To remove ignored and non-ignored files, run
git clean -f -xorgit clean -fx
Note the case difference on the X for the two latter commands.
If clean.requireForce is set to "true" (the default) in your configuration, one needs to specify -f otherwise nothing will actually happen.
Again see the git-clean docs for more information.
Options
-f,--forceIf the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given
-f,-nor-i.
-xDon’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and
$GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with-eoptions. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.
-XRemove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.
-n,--dry-runDon’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
-dRemove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use
-foption twice if you really want to remove such a directory.
-
357
git clean -fworks only in the directory where it's called (and subdirectories). If you want to clean the whole working copy, you should call it in its root directory. Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 10:51 -
26It is also removing all files inside .gitignore. I need to delete only files/folders which are new and not in .gitignore– KostanosCommented Aug 5, 2013 at 23:02
-
31@Kostanos If you don't want to remove files that are in .gitignore, then do not provide the -x flag.– Lo-TanCommented Aug 23, 2013 at 18:44
-
68
git clean -f :/works as if you had run it in the root repo dir. See also later answers also accounting for submodules withgit clean -ffxd :/– hereCommented Oct 16, 2014 at 20:38 -
4After struggling and cursing for 45 solid minutes, I found @EduardoBezerra's comment... I think the OP should edit his answer to emphasize git clean's behavior - of only deleting stuff in the directory you are - and subdirectories thereof. It's not clear from git help or from the answer itself. Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 15:43
Use git clean -f -d to make sure that directories are also removed.
Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
git clean -nor
git clean --dry-runRemove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use the
-foption twice if you really want to remove such a directory.git clean -fd
You can then check if your files are really gone with git status.
answered May 26, 2009 at 20:59
-
130
-
18
-
Using
-nor--dry-runby themselves did nothing. As per @Ms01 and @Micer, you need to add-d, as ingit clean -ndto show what it is going to remove.– joehannaCommented Sep 28, 2021 at 23:25 -
I am surprised nobody mentioned this before:
git clean -i
That stands for interactive and you will get a quick overview of what is going to be deleted offering you the possibility to include/exclude the affected files. Overall, still faster than running the mandatory --dry-run before the real cleaning.
You will have to toss in a -d if you also want to take care of empty folders. At the end, it makes for a nice alias:
git iclean
That being said, the extra hand holding of interactive commands can be tiring for experienced users. These days I just use the already mentioned git clean -fd
answered Dec 30, 2013 at 20:12
-
19@pal4life It was added in 1.8.4, you might be running an older version of git? github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.4.txt Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 12:37
-
I like this – I'm more comfortable having it in my bash history than any of the other options, because it's no big deal if I accidentally ctrl-r or ctrl-p to it.– csvossCommented Oct 21, 2019 at 22:38
-
1Could it be that
git clean -iworks only if called from the root of the working copy? Commented Jun 4, 2020 at 10:43
answered Sep 14, 2008 at 9:09
Simple Way to remove untracked files
To remove all untracked files, The simple way is to add all of them first and reset the repo as below
git add --all
git reset --hard HEAD
-
13You can replace
git add --allbygit add .. So you can do it in a shorter way in onelinegit add . && git reset --hard HEAD( be very carefull with this command). Commented Mar 30, 2017 at 13:35 -
12Because
git cleanapparently also deletes everything that is ignored. It just deleted mynode_modulesfolder. Doing this would first stage all files except for the ignored ones, and then delete them by doing a reset. Ignored files will not be touched.– AndreasCommented Sep 19, 2017 at 7:54 -
5@Andreas it doesn't delete ignored files for me (git 2.14.1). You should run
git clean -nanyway before doing the real deletion (or usegit clean -i).– Qw3ryCommented Sep 26, 2017 at 11:12 -
13
git cleandeletes ignored files only if you use either the-xor-Xoption, otherwise it just deletes untracked files. Commented Sep 26, 2017 at 20:17 -
4@RousseauAlexandre
git add .only adds from the current directory on down, whereasgit add --allapplies to the repo. The latter appears like a safer option.– TrueWillCommented Jan 16, 2018 at 19:09
If untracked directory is a git repository of its own (e.g. submodule), you need to use -f twice:
git clean -d -f -f
answered Jan 25, 2013 at 12:24
-
7BTW, this is written in documentation : Git will refuse to delete directories with .git sub directory or file unless a second -f is given. But thanks anyway! Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 9:03
-
@MaximSuslov There would be significantly fewer questions asked on SO if documentation were as helpful as your comment suggests. But thanks anyway!– blackboxCommented Sep 22, 2022 at 18:24
-
You may want to cd to the root folder before running it, e.g.
cdtogit rev-parse --show-toplevelCommented Nov 24, 2022 at 13:27
This is what I always use:
git clean -fdx
For a very large project you might want to run it a couple of times.
answered Nov 25, 2013 at 14:16
-
@Martin One of the projects I'm working on is +8 years old with +80 developers actively coding. Git sometimes fails to clean it on the first pass. Commented Feb 29, 2016 at 13:10
-
1I can confirm this, so this is still valid in 2020. We are also working on a large project and I had to run it 4-5 times until GIT did not find any more files to be deleted. Commented Apr 17, 2020 at 6:37
-
Main thing to keep in mind is that above command works only on the directory you are in. So if you run above command in subfolder then it doesnt remove untracked files from parent folder or it's other subfolders. Commented May 17, 2022 at 12:38
I like git stash push -u because you can undo them all with git stash pop.
EDIT: Also I found a way to show untracked file in a stash (e.g. git show stash@{0}^3) https://stackoverflow.com/a/12681856/338986
EDIT2: git stash save is deprecated in favor of push. Thanks @script-wolf.
-
3Can you explain the -u on the stash? I do not follow how that works differently from git stash save. I tried this and it worked. Looked on git docs and could not find it there either. Commented Oct 17, 2016 at 20:52
-
11
-uis equivalent to--include-untracked. You can find a help withgit help stash.– hiroshiCommented Oct 18, 2016 at 8:55 -
3@hiroshi Thanks! after trying every darn solution from a dozen different people this is the one that finally worked...whew ! Even a git stash did nada. The save - u took care of untracked. reset hard /clean force/etc none of these did anything for me.– killjoyCommented Feb 15, 2017 at 16:26
-
3The
saveoption was deprecated in favor ofpush, which does the same but more. You can read more here, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44680028/whats-the-difference-between-git-stash-save-and-git-stash-push/44681952 Commented Oct 24, 2018 at 15:51
Be careful while running `git clean` command.
Always use -n first
Always use -n before running the clean command as it will show you what files would get removed.
-d Normally, when no is specified, git clean will not recurse into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories mentioned under --force) will be removed.
-f | --force
If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second -f is given.
git clean -n -d
git clean -n -d -f
Now run without -n if output was what you intend to remove.
git clean -d -f
By default, git clean will only remove untracked files that are not ignored. Any file that matches a pattern in your .gitignore or other ignore files will not be removed. If you want to remove those files too, you can add a -x to the clean command.
git clean -f -d -x
There is also interactive mode available -i with the clean command
git clean -x -i
Alternatively
If you are not 100% sure that deleting your uncommitted work is safe, you could use stashing insteadgit stash --all
Before you use stash --all note:
If the --all option is used, then the ignored files are stashed and cleaned in addition to the untracked files.
git stash push --keep-index
If the --keep-index option is used, all changes already added to the index are left intact. Your staged changes remain in your workspace, but at the same time, they are also saved into your stash.
Calling git stash without any arguments is equivalent to git stash push.
git stash push -m "name your stash" // before git stash save (deprecated)
Stashing based on the used flags can clear your directory from unstaged / staged files by writing them to stash storage. I give’s flexibility to retrieve the files at any point in time using stash with apply or pop. Then if you are fine with removing your stashed files you could run:
git stash drop // or clean
To see full instruction on how to work with stash see this How to name and retrieve a stash by name in git?
-
2the stash is a good idea, however you might wanna use
git stash save and type some comment as to what this stash was forCommented Jun 30, 2019 at 15:46 -
I had about 20 images I wanted removed from various directories but
git stash --allremoved thousands of files and broke my project. What's up with that? It even removed vendor directory. I would be cautious using this. Luckily I am doing this in a local repo at home and not in production. Commented Oct 5, 2021 at 17:56 -
git stash --allWill remove vendor directory, node_modules, .env and storage files in Laravel plus what ever else I missed. I had to composer install, recreate my .env file and recreate cache folders in storage. Terrible idea unless you want to remove untracked files plus everything that's inside your .gitignore file Commented Oct 7, 2021 at 14:36 -
1newer git versions can use
git stash pushwhich is also able to stash untracked files Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 16:35
git-clean is what you are looking for. It is used to remove untracked files from the working tree.
If needed to remove untracked files from particular subdirectory,
git clean -f {dir_path}
And combined way to delete untracked dir/files and ignored files.
git clean -fxd {dir_path}
after this you will have modified files only in git status.
Remove all extra folders and files in this repo + submodules
This gets you in same state as fresh clone.
git clean -ffdx
Remove all extra folders and files in this repo but not its submodules
git clean -fdx
Remove extra folders but not files (ex. build or logs folder)
git clean -fd
Remove extra folders + ignored files (but not newly added files)
If file wasn't ignored and not yet checked-in then it stays. Note the capital X.
git clean -fdX
New interactive mode
git clean
answered Feb 12, 2017 at 8:33
-
1This answer works great! You can always add
--dry-runoption to list the files/folders to remove before commit the action Commented Jul 1, 2021 at 4:06
OK, deleting unwanted untracked files and folders are easy using git in command line, just do it like this:
git clean -fd
Double check before doing it as it will delete the files and folders without making any history...
Also in this case, -f stands for force and -d stands for directory...
So, if you want to delete files only, you can use -f only:
git clean -f
If you want to delete(directories) and files, you can delete only untracked directories and files like this:
git clean -fd
Also, you can use -x flag for including the files which are ignored by git. This would be helpful if you want to delete everything.
And adding -i flag, makes git asking you for permission for deleting files one by one on the go.
If you not sure and want to check things first, add -n flag.
Use -q if you don't want to see any report after successful deletion.
I also create the image below to make it more memorable, especially I have seen many people confuse -f for cleaning folder sometimes or mix it up somehow!
git clean -fd removes directory
git clean -fX removes ignored files
git clean -fx removes ignored and un-ignored files
can be used all above options in combination as
git clean -fdXx
check git manual for more help
-
11The command
git clean -fdXxproduces the error message "fatal: -x and -X cannot be used together" (using git-2.8). For your last sentence within your answer, please provide a link to git manual. Cheers– oHoCommented Jul 4, 2016 at 16:23
A better way is to use: git clean
git clean -d -x -f
This removes untracked files, including directories (-d) and files ignored by git (-x).
Also, replace the -f argument with -n to perform a dry-run or -i for interactive mode and it will tell you what will be removed.
User interactive approach:
git clean -i -fd
Remove .classpath [y/N]? N
Remove .gitignore [y/N]? N
Remove .project [y/N]? N
Remove .settings/ [y/N]? N
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/inspector/ [y/N]? y
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/manifest/ [y/N]? y
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/s3/ [y/N]? y
Remove tst/com/arsdumpgenerator/manifest/ [y/N]? y
Remove tst/com/arsdumpgenerator/s3/ [y/N]? y
-i for interactive
-f for force
-d for directory
-x for ignored files(add if required)
Note: Add -n or --dry-run to just check what it will do.
answered Mar 2, 2017 at 20:09
To remove Untracked files :
git add .
git reset --hard HEAD
answered May 20, 2020 at 16:05
A lifehack for such situation I just invented and tried (that works perfectly):
git add .
git reset --hard HEAD
Beware! Be sure to commit any needed changes (even in non-untracked files) before performing this.
-
3At least this is a different approach. :) Another way, that would remember the deleted files in the reflog but not in any branches, would be:
git add .git commit -m 'about to delete'git reset --hard HEAD~Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 6:10 -
2
-
3
-
@AlexanderMills
git reset --hardresets all uncommited changes BUT UNTRACKED FILES to the state of the latest commit. That is why we first needgit add .-- that stages all untracked files (so they are reset, too)– thybziCommented Aug 30, 2017 at 11:54
For me only following worked:
git clean -ffdx
In all other cases, I was getting message "Skipping Directory" for some subdirectories.
-
2Thanks. I left out the
-xand just usedgit clean -ffdto avoid erasing files in the .gitignore.– FeckmoreCommented Jan 25, 2017 at 17:46
git clean -f -d -x $(git rev-parse --show-cdup) applies clean to the root directory, no matter where you call it within a repository directory tree. I use it all the time as it does not force you to leave the folder where you working now and allows to clean & commit right from the place where you are.
Be sure that flags -f, -d, -x match your needs:
-d
Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an
untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is
not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to
remove such a directory.
-f, --force
If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to
false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless
given -f, -n or -i. Git will refuse to delete directories with .git
sub directory or file unless a second -f is given. This affects
also git submodules where the storage area of the removed submodule
under .git/modules/ is not removed until -f is given twice.
-x
Don't use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per
directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore
rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked
files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in
conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory
to test a clean build.
There are other flags as well available, just check git clean --help.
-
BTW you can just do git clean {flags} :/ so it will be as if you ran the command in the repo root Commented Jun 24, 2017 at 19:07
git add --all, git stash and git stash drop, try these three commands in this order inorder to remove all untracked files. By adding all those untracked files to git and stashing them will move all those untracked files to stash list and dropping out top one i.e., stash@{0} will remove the stashed changes from stash list.
If you just want to delete the files listed as untracked by 'git status'
git stash save -u
git stash drop "stash@{0}"
I prefer this to 'git clean' because 'git clean' will delete files ignored by git, so your next build will have to rebuild everything and you may lose your IDE settings too.
-
3This will also remove valid changes to tracked files. I wouldn't recommend it. Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 17:06
-
2Yeah, you'd want to commit changes to tracked files first. Commented Apr 5, 2016 at 0:01
To know what will be deleted before actually deleting:
git clean -d -n
It will output something like:
Would remove sample.txt
To delete everything listed in the output of the previous command:
git clean -d -f
It will output something like:
Removing sample.txt
To remove the untracked files you should first use command to view the files that will be affected by cleaning
git clean -fdn
This will show you the list of files that will be deleted. Now to actually delete those files use this command:
git clean -fd
This is the way.
git add .
git stash
For more information https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes/git-stash#stashing-your-work
-
-
This approach is great... feels a bit of a hack but is very simple and safe! Commented May 15 at 14:14
-
uggested Command for Removing Untracked Files from git docs is git clean
git clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree
Suggested Method: Interative Mode by using git clean -i
so we can have control over it. let see remaining available options.
Available Options:
git clean
-d -f -i -n -q -e -x -X (can use either)
Explanation:
1. -d
Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.
2. -f, --force
If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given -f, -n or -i.
3. -i, --interactive
Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See “Interactive mode” for details.
4. -n, --dry-run
Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
5. -q, --quiet
Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are successfully removed.
6. -e , --exclude=
In addition to those found in .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, also consider these patterns to be in the set of the ignore rules in effect.
7. -x
Don’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.
8. -X
Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.
answered Sep 1, 2017 at 6:23
-
I think you have a typo
uggestedbut that's just a "uggestionlol Commented Jun 30, 2019 at 15:44
git clean -f to remove untracked files from working directory.
I have covered some basics here in my blog, git-intro-basic-commands
Normal git clean command doesn't remove untracked files with my git version 2.9.0.windows.1.
$ git clean -fdx # doesn't remove untracked files
$ git clean -fdx * # Append star then it works!
We can easily removed local untracked files from the current git working tree by using below git comments.
git reset [--soft | --mixed [-N] | --hard | --merge | --keep] [-q] [<commit>]
Example:
git reset --hard HEAD
Links :
-
This will also remove changes staged for commit, not only untracked files, which may not be what you want.– raspyCommented May 8, 2019 at 10:26
-
Doesn't work: leaves some files.
git clean -ffdxis the solution Commented May 9, 2019 at 14:17
Clean out git repository and all submodules recursively
The following command will clean out the current git repository and all its submodules recursively:
(git clean -d -x -f && git submodule foreach --recursive git clean -d -x -f)
git cleanhas now an interactive mode! See my answer to this other question: git 1.8.4+git cleanor some variation in the answers below, including the interactive version to delete just selective files, but interactive mode can be tedious. Whatever you do, make sure you understand whatgit cleanwill delete or use--dry-runto have it tell you without deleting anything.rm files-to-be-deleted