Stop tracking a file in git - without having it deleted either locally or on pull

Question

I want to ignore a file/directory tree that was previously tracked - ignore it forever but have it not being deleted on a pull - just have it ignored o

Answer 1

This is not possible. To prevent new changes from being tracked, you need to remove the file from the repository (using git rm or git rm --cached). This adds a change to the commit that removes the file. When that change is then applied in other repositories, the remove action is performed, resulting in the file being removed.