Git delete remove files

Git that you can use to delete files, undo changes to specific data, or remove entire sets of code changes from history delete a commit from Git.

In this post, we'll dig deep with wiping out files using Git bash commands from either staging tracked data , commit history, or the remote repository on Windows environment. Before we start, it's essential that you determine what you are trying to accomplish with your removal operation before you run any commands. Is your file in working directory only and not tracked yet by Git?

If Git monitors your file, Is it in the staging area or commit history? Is it already in the remote repository? To remove files or directories from commit history or back out changes from a single file, you can go through the following sections:. In this post, we will assume that you have Git bash installed on Windows that runs commands correctly.

However, we recommend that you take a look at the Easiest Way to Install Git Bash Commands on Windows and make sure you applied all the necessary configurations before getting started with the demo that follows. We also assume that you have the required Git knowledge of repositories and how to clone a remote one to your local system. In this section, you will prepare a demo project to test the different Git removal and backing out commands on some of its files.

You can skip this part if you'd like to run the deletion commands on your project, but we recommend it to avoid any unexpected risks. To set up the demo project, follow these steps:. Create that directory with the same path then run the following command on Git Bash:. Step 3: Clone the demo project called "Kaizen" from GitHub by running the following command:. Then once Git finishes the cloning, browse to the project Git working directory by running the following command:.

Git should now show you that it stepped into the project working directory and the current branch is master. Step 4: Now, let's ask Git about the status of the pulled repository by running this command:. Git should now show that it's in a clean working directory as shown in the below screenshot:. Now you should be all set for testing the different scenarios of deleting files from history with Git commands.

In this section, we will delete a file from the pulled local Git repository and push the deletion to the remote repository. In the "Kaizen" project let's remove the "minimal. Step 2: Now, it's time to commit the staged deletion to the local repository with the following command:. Then by rerunning the git status command, you should get a response from Git that you are in a clean working directory and you got nothing more to commit. At this step, Git deleted the file on the local repository only, but if you went to the remote repository on GitHub, you'd find that the file still exists there.

Step 4: To push the committed deletion to the remote repository, run the following command:. After running the previous push command, the file should no more be existing in GitHub and Git should show a response like the one in the following screenshot:. By running the previous four steps, you should have the file removed entirely from Git commit history and the remote repository.

Let's assume that you want to remove the "level1" directory under the "Kaizen" project. If you followed the previous command by a git status command, you'd find that Git staged the directory deletion and the files beneath it to be committed. But you can also provide multiple filenames delimited by spaces or even a wildcard pattern e. Removes the file only from the Git repository, but not from the filesystem. By default, the git rm command deletes files both from the Git repository as well as the filesystem.

Using the --cached flag, the actual file on disk will not be deleted. Recursively removes folders. When a path to a directory is specified, the -r flag allows Git to remove that folder including all its contents. No files are actually removed. With this option or its shorthand -n notation , you will only see an output of the files that Git would remove - but no files are actually deleted.

In case you are using the Tower Git client , removing files is very easy: by selecting the "Move to Trash" option, Tower will automatically mark the file as "deleted" in Git. To remove a file both from the Git repository and the filesystem, you can use git rm without any parameters except for the file's name, of course :. If you only want to remove the file from the repository, but keep it on the filesystem, you can add the --cached flag:.

When trying to delete multiple files in a directory or via a glob pattern, you might want to perform a "dry-run" first and see which files would be removed:. Removing a single file is done with the git rm filename command. In worst situations, you may also find that a lot is removed. A new commit will leave you with a rather unfortunate situation. Git remove is also useful when you need to remove files you have just added to a repository in error. There is a simple one-liner that will help you safely remove your local deletions from your repository.

This is done by using the git ls-files command with a --deleted -z parameter. This is piped to a git rm command using the filename and full path into the git rm command. Using that command is much safer.