I have added a file named "file1.txt" to a Git repository. After that, I committed it, added a couple of directories called dir1 and dir2, and committed them to the Git repository.
Now the current repository has "file1.txt", dir1, and dir2. How can I delete "file1.txt" without affecting others, like dir1 and dir2?
Use git rm.
If you want to remove the file from the Git repository and the filesystem, use:
git rm file1.txt
git commit -m "remove file1.txt"
But if you want to remove the file only from the Git repository and not remove it from the filesystem, use:
git rm --cached file1.txt
git commit -m "remove file1.txt"
And to push changes to remote repo
git push origin branch_name
git rm file.txt removes the file from the repo but also deletes it from the local file system.
To remove the file from the repo and not delete it from the local file system use:git rm --cached file.txt
The below exact situation is where I use git to maintain version control for my business's website, but the "mickey" directory was a tmp folder to share private content with a CAD developer. When he needed HUGE files, I made a private, unlinked directory and ftpd the files there for him to fetch via browser. Forgetting I did this, I later performed a git add -A from the website's base directory. Subsequently, git status showed the new files needing committing. Now I needed to delete them from git's tracking and version control...
Sample output below is from what just happened to me, where I unintentionally deleted the .003 file. Thankfully, I don't care what happened to the local copy to .003, but some of the other currently changed files were updates I just made to the website and would be epic to have been deleted on the local file system! "Local file system" = the live website (not a great practice, but is reality).
[~/www]$ git rm shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.003
error: 'shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.003' has local modifications
(use --cached to keep the file, or -f to force removal)
[~/www]$ git rm -f shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.003
rm 'shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.003'
[~/www]$
[~/www]$ git status
# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
# (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
# deleted: shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.003
#
# Changed but not updated:
# (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
# (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
# modified: shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.001
# modified: shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.002
[~/www]$ ls shop/mickey/mtt_flange_S*
shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.001 shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.002
[~/www]$
[~/www]$
[~/www]$ git rm --cached shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.002
rm 'shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.002'
[~/www]$ ls shop/mickey/mtt_flange_S*
shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.001 shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.002
[~/www]$
[~/www]$
[~/www]$ git status
# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
# (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
# deleted: shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.002
# deleted: shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.003
#
# Changed but not updated:
# modified: shop/mickey/mtt_flange_SCN.7z.001
[~/www]$
Update: This answer is getting some traffic, so I thought I'd mention my other Git answer shares a couple of great resources: This page has a graphic that help demystify Git for me. The "Pro Git" book is online and helps me a lot.
First, if you are using git rm, especially for multiple files, consider any wildcard will be resolved by the shell, not by the git command.
git rm -- *.anExtension
git commit -m "remove multiple files"
But, if your file is already on GitHub, you can (since July 2013) directly delete it from the web GUI!
Simply view any file in your repository, click the trash can icon at the top, and commit the removal just like any other web-based edit.
Then "git pull" on your local repo, and that will delete the file locally too.
Which makes this answer a (roundabout) way to delete a file from git repo?
(Not to mention that a file on GitHub is in a "git repo")
(the commit will reflect the deletion of that file):
And just like that, it’s gone.
For help with these features, be sure to read our help articles on creating, moving, renaming, and deleting files.
Note: Since it’s a version control system, Git always has your back if you need to recover the file later.
The last sentence means that the deleted file is still part of the history, and you can restore it easily enough (but not yet through the GitHub web interface):
This is the only option that worked for me.
git filter-branch -f --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch *.sql'
Note: Replace *.sql with your file name or file type. Be very careful because this will go through every commit and rip this file type out.
EDIT: pay attention - after this command you will not be able to push or pull - you will see the reject of 'unrelated history' you can use 'git push --force -u origin master' to push or pull
More generally, git help will help with at least simple questions like this:
zhasper@berens:/media/Kindle/documents$ git help
usage: git [--version] [--exec-path[=GIT_EXEC_PATH]] [--html-path] [-p|--paginate|--no-pager] [--bare] [--git-dir=GIT_DIR] [--work-tree=GIT_WORK_TREE] [--help] COMMAND [ARGS]
The most commonly used git commands are:
add Add file contents to the index
:
rm Remove files from the working tree and from the index
If you want to delete the file from the repo, but leave it in the the file system (will be untracked):
bykov@gitserver:~/temp> git rm --cached file1.txt
bykov@gitserver:~/temp> git commit -m "remove file1.txt from the repo"
If you want to delete the file from the repo and from the file system then there are two options:
If the file has no changes staged in the index:
bykov@gitserver:~/temp> git rm file1.txt
bykov@gitserver:~/temp> git commit -m "remove file1.txt"
If the file has changes staged in the index:
bykov@gitserver:~/temp> git rm -f file1.txt
bykov@gitserver:~/temp> git commit -m "remove file1.txt"
git rm will only remove the file on this branch from now on, but it remains in history and git will remember it.
The right way to do it is with git filter-branch, as others have mentioned here. It will rewrite every commit in the history of the branch to delete that file.
But, even after doing that, git can remember it because there can be references to it in reflog, remotes, tags and such.
If you want to completely obliterate it in one step, I recommend you to use git forget-blob
It is easy, just do git forget-blob file1.txt.
This will remove every reference, do git filter-branch, and finally run the git garbage collector git gc to completely get rid of this file in your repo.
Note: if you want to delete file only from git use below:
git rm --cached file1.txt
If you want to delete also from hard disk:
git rm file1.txt
If you want to remove a folder(the folder may contain few files) so, you should remove using recursive command, as below:
git rm -r foldername
If you want to remove a folder inside another folder
git rm -r parentFolder/childFolder
Then, you can commit and push as usual. However, if you want to recover deleted folder, you can follow this: recover deleted files from git is possible.
From doc:
git rm [-f | --force] [-n] [-r] [--cached] [--ignore-unmatch] [--quiet] [--] <file>…OPTIONS
<file>…Files to remove. Fileglobs (e.g. *.c) can be given to remove all matching files. If you want Git to expand file glob characters, youmay need to shell-escape them. A leading directory name (e.g. dir to remove dir/file1 and dir/file2) can be given to remove all files in the directory, and recursively all sub-directories, but this requires the -r option to be explicitly given.
-f--forceOverride the up-to-date check.
-n--dry-runDon’t actually remove any file(s). Instead, just show if they exist in the index and would otherwise be removed by the command.
-rAllow recursive removal when a leading directory name is given.
--This option can be used to separate command-line options from the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken forcommand-line options).
--cachedUse this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index. Working tree files, whether modified or not, will be left alone.--ignore-unmatch
Exit with a zero status even if no files matched.
-q--quietgit rm normally outputs one line (in the form of an rm command) for each file removed. This option suppresses that output.
If you have the GitHub for Windows application, you can delete a file in 5 easy steps:
According to the documentation.
git rm --cached file1.txt
When it comes to sensitive data—better not say that you removed the file but rather just include it in the last known commit:
0. Amend last commit
git commit --amend -CHEAD
If you want to delete the file from all git history, according to the documentation you should do the following:
1. Remove it from your local history
git filter-branch --force --index-filter \ "git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA" \ --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all
# Replace PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA with the path to the file you want to remove, not just its filename
echo "YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA" >> .gitignore
git add .gitignore
git commit -m "Add YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA to .gitignore"
3. If you need to remove from the remote
git push origin --force --all
4. If you also need to remove it from tag releases:
git push origin --force --tags
First,Remove files from local repository.
git rm -r File-Name
or, remove files only from local repository but from filesystem
git rm --cached File-Name
Secondly, Commit changes into local repository.
git commit -m "unwanted files or some inline comments"
Finally, update/push local changes into remote repository.
git push
The answer by Greg Hewgill, that was edited by Johannchopin helped me, as I did not care about removing the file from the history completely. In my case, it was a directory, so the only change I did was using:
git rm -r --cached myDirectoryName
instead of "git rm --cached file1.txt" ..followed by:
git commit -m "deleted myDirectoryName from git"
git push origin branch_name
Thanks Greg Hewgill and Johannchopin!
For the case where git rm doesn't suffice and the file needs to be removed from history: As the git filter-branch manual page now itself suggests using git-filter-repo, and I had to do this today, here's an example using that tool. It uses the example repo https://example/eguser/eg.git
Clone the repository into a new directory git clone https://example/eguser/eg.git
Keep everything except the unwanted file. git-filter-repo --path file1.txt --invert-paths
Add the remote repository origin back :
git remote add origin https://example/eguser/eg.git.
The git-filter-repo tool removes remote remote info by design and suggests a new remote repo (see point 4). This makes sense for big shared repos but might be overkill for getting rid a single newly added file as in this example.
When happy with the contents of local, replace remote with it.
git push --force -u origin master. Forcing is required due to the changed history.
Also note the useful --dry-run option and a good discussion in the linked manual on team and project dynamics before charging in and changing repository history.
I tried a lot of the suggested options and none appeared to work (I won't list the various problems). What I ended up doing, which worked, was simple and intuitive (to me) was:
After you have removed the file from the repo with git rm you can use BFG Repo-Cleaner to completely and easily obliterate the file from the repo history.
I have obj and bin files that accidentally made it into the repo that I don't want polluting my 'changed files' list
After I noticed they went to the remote, I ignored them by adding this to .gitignore
/*/obj
/*/bin
Problem is they are already in the remote, and when they get changed, they pop up as changed and pollute the changed file list.
To stop seeing them, you need to delete the whole folder from the remote repository.
In a command prompt:
C:\repos\MyRepo)C:\repos\MyRepo\SSIS) git rm -r -f obj
git commit -m "remove obj folder"I got an alarming message saying 13 files changed 315222 deletions
Then because I didn't want to have to look up the CMD line, I went into Visual Sstudio and did a Sync to apply it to the remote
Incase if you don't file in your local repo but in git repo, then simply open file in git repo through web interface and find Delete button at right corner in interface. Click Here, To view interface Delete Option
git rmis the right answer, but remember that the file will still be there in history. If you want to remove a file because it had sensitive information, you'll need to do something more drastic. (Changing history, especially for content you've already pushed, is a drastic action, and should be avoided if possible.) – Keith Thompson