Git Ignore everything in a directory except subfolders

Question

This is my folder structure:

data/
    .gitignore
    uploads/
        .gitignore

I would like to commit the folders but not the files inside them.

So I add a .gitignore files in every folder with the following content:

# Ignore everything in this directory
*
# Except this file
!.gitignore

The problem is that * matches also on directories so git tracks only data/.gitignore

Answer 1

Please don't misuse .gitignore files. Better stick to default ways to go on this, so later developers can quickly get into your project.

1. Add an empty .gitkeep file in the folders that you want to commit without the files

2. Exclude the folders, but not the .gitkeep from your main .gitignore file.

   folder/*
   !folder/.gitkeep
   

This ignores all files in a folder, but not the .gitkeep file. Now the folder will be commited with only the .gitkeep file as content.