Why does “git status” show way too much untracked files?

Question

Answer in the bottom.

I am trying to see the status of my files in the git_test2 directory which contains 3 files named

Answer 1

Why are there so many files?

A git repository is just a .git/ directory (folder) located in your project's directory. Like this: myproject/.git/.

If there's no git repository in your current directory, git searches in the parent directory, then in parent's parent and up to top.

As your path was /Users/ishayfrenkel1/Desktop/git_test2, there should be a git repo somewhere in this path.

new file:   ../../Library/Preferences/AndroidStudio1.2/options/git.xml

New files have path at least two levels up from /Library (which is either /Library or /Users/ishayfrenkel1/Library). It means that you have a git repository initiated:

• either in your home directory: ~/, /Users// on OSX or /home/ on Linux.
• or in the root directory, /, the parent of all directories.

How it happened.

Most probably you opened the Terminal and typed git init. Terminal opens in your home directory by default and that's where the new repository was created.

What to do now.

Search for it and delete it. One of the following commands should run without an error. And there it is!

ls /.git
ls ~/.git

Now remove the repository with

rm -rf ~/.git