How to find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository

Question

Say I\'m in a Git repository. I delete a file and commit that change. I continue working and make some more commits. Then, I find I need to restore that file.

I know

Answer 1

Find the commit that deleted your file:

git log --diff-filter=D --oneline -- path/to/file | cut -f -d ' '

Sample output:

4711174

As of Git 2.23 there is actually a restore command. It is still experimental but in order to restore something you removed in a commit (4711174 in this case) you can then type:

git restore --source=4711174^ path/to/file

Note the ^ after the commit id as we want to restore something from the commit before the one that deleted the file.

The --source argument tells the restore command where to look for the file(s) to restore and it can be any commit and even the index.

See: git-restore doc for git 2.23.0