Using git, how do you reset the working tree (local file system state) to the state of the index (“staged” files)?

66
votes

Situation:

  1. Edit files
  2. Add files to the index with git add (these files are now "staged")
  3. Edit more files

Now we have three different states: the state of HEAD (which points to the last commit), the state of the index (which includes all added, or "staged" files) and the state of the working tree (the unstaged, local file system state). What is the command to undo changes in the working tree so that it matches the state of the index?

5
git
I edited your question to define and make clear what "working tree" and "index" mean, as I've been using git for years and only discovered yesterday what these terms mean. I think will help reach many more people, as most of the "populace" using git doesn't know these terms, but they do know what their local file system is, what git add is, and what green lines (staged content in the index) means when they look at git status. Hopefully you're okay with these changes. – Gabriel Staples

5 Answers

79
votes

I tend to use git checkout . which discards all changes from the working directory down. This makes a difference if you're not at the root of the repository.

This command doesn't remove newly created files which is usually a good thing. If you need to do this then you can use git clean as well.

16
votes

You can use git stash save --keep-index to do this. After saving the stash, you can use git stash drop if you don't want to keep it around.

11
votes

You can use git-checkout-index (git checkout-index). Be aware that you need to add

  • -f to force it to overwrite existing files, or
  • -f -a to enforce overwriting all paths in the index.
3
votes

git checkout :/ discards all changes in the working tree and replaces it with what's in the index, regardless of the current working directory.

https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary#Documentation/gitglossary.txt-aiddefpathspecapathspec

3
votes

The other answers I don't think capture the full parts. Here's what you need:

Just the commands:

git checkout-index -fa
git clean -fd

With detailed comments:

Note: Run git status. Changes shown in green are in your index. These are "staged" changes. Changes shown in red are in your working tree, or local file system, but NOT in the index. These are "unstaged" changes. Calling git checkout-index -fa forces your working tree to match your index, so git status will no longer show those changes in red after running that command, unless it is an entirely new file you have in your working tree, in which case git clean -fd is required to remove/delete it.

# 1. 'f'orce checkout 'a'll paths from the index (staged/added files) to the
# working tree (local file system) 
git checkout-index -fa

# 2. 'f'orce clean (remove) all files and 'd'irectories which are in the working 
# tree but NOT in the index. WARNING WARNING WARNING: this is a destructive
# command and cannot be undone. It is like doing `rm` to remove files. 
# First, make sure no changes exist in red when you run `git status` which
# you want to keep.
git clean -fd

From man git checkout-index:

-f, --force
    forces overwrite of existing files

-a, --all
    checks out all files in the index. Cannot be used together with
    explicit filenames.

See also:

  1. this great help from @Peter Tillemans
  2. my answer where I needed these commands to do a --hard or --soft git reset by path
  3. [my answer, which contains "All about checking out files or directories in git"] How to get just one file from another branch