How to preserve all ignored files in git clean -fd?

git git-clean
Danny Lin picture Danny Lin · Oct 18, 2013 · Viewed 11k times · Source

When I have .gitignore data/* and run git clean -fd, the data folder and all its content files are deleted.

What I want is to delete all unrevisioned files in a git repo while excluding all ignored files (i.e. DON'T delete gitignored files). What could I do?

Answer

talles picture talles · Oct 18, 2013

Git normally doesn't clean ignored files unless the -x flag is specified, but strangely it cleans out when configured as you did (folder/*).

As @VonC pointed out, you should change your .gitignore-file to ignore the directory (data/) rather than its contents (data/*).

It's a subtle difference, but it matters to git.

Related questions

How to revert uncommitted changes including files and folders?

Is there a git command to revert all uncommitted changes in a working tree and index and to also remove newly created files and folders?

Read More
Reduce git repository size

I tried looking for a good tutorial on reducing repo size, but found none. How do I reduce my repo size...it's about 10 MB, but the thing is Heroku only allows 50 MB and I'm no where near finished developing my …

Read More
Git pull - Please move or remove them before you can merge

I am trying to do a git pull origin master from my server but keep getting the error: Please move or remove them before you can merge. There are no untracked files, but it seems like it has issues with …

Read More