How to remove local (untracked) files from the current Git working tree

Question

How do you delete untracked local files from your current working tree?

Answer 1

I like git stash push -u because you can undo them all with git stash pop.

EDIT: Also I found a way to show untracked file in a stash (e.g. git show stash@{0}^3) https://stackoverflow.com/a/12681856/338986

EDIT2: git stash save is deprecated in favor of push. Thanks @script-wolf.

Answer 2

Normal git clean command doesn't remove untracked files with my git version 2.9.0.windows.1.

$ git clean -fdx     # doesn't remove untracked files
$ git clean -fdx *   # Append star then it works!

Answer 3

git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Synopsis

git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>…​

Description

Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not under version control, starting from the current directory.

Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be useful to remove all build products.

If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are affected.

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Step 1 is to show what will be deleted by using the -n option:

# Print out the list of files and directories which will be removed (dry run)
git clean -n -d

Clean Step - beware: this will delete files:

# Delete the files from the repository
git clean -f

• To remove directories, run git clean -f -d or git clean -fd
• To remove ignored files, run git clean -f -X or git clean -fX
• To remove ignored and non-ignored files, run git clean -f -x or git clean -fx

Note the case difference on the X for the two latter commands.

If clean.requireForce is set to "true" (the default) in your configuration, one needs to specify -f otherwise nothing will actually happen.

Again see the git-clean docs for more information.

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Options

-f, --force

If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given -f, -n or -i.

-x

Don’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

-X

Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

-n, --dry-run

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

-d

Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.

Answer 4

git clean -f to remove untracked files from working directory.

I have covered some basics here in my blog, git-intro-basic-commands

Answer 5

Remove all extra folders and files in this repo + submodules

This gets you in same state as fresh clone.

git clean -ffdx

Remove all extra folders and files in this repo but not its submodules

git clean -fdx

Remove extra folders but not files (ex. build or logs folder)

git clean -fd

Remove extra folders + ignored files (but not newly added files)

If file wasn't ignored and not yet checked-in then it stays. Note the capital X.

git clean -fdX

New interactive mode

git clean

Answer 6

uggested Command for Removing Untracked Files from git docs is git clean

git clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Suggested Method: Interative Mode by using git clean -i so we can have control over it. let see remaining available options.

Available Options:

git clean 
    -d -f -i -n -q -e -x -X (can use either)

Explanation:

1. -d

Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.

2. -f, --force

If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given -f, -n or -i.

3. -i, --interactive

Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See “Interactive mode” for details.

4. -n, --dry-run

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

5. -q, --quiet

Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are successfully removed.

6. -e , --exclude=

In addition to those found in .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, also consider these patterns to be in the set of the ignore rules in effect.

7. -x

Don’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

8. -X

Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.