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

User interactive approach:

git clean -i -fd

Remove .classpath [y/N]? N
Remove .gitignore [y/N]? N
Remove .project [y/N]? N
Remove .settings/ [y/N]? N
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/inspector/ [y/N]? y
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/manifest/ [y/N]? y
Remove src/com/arsdumpgenerator/s3/ [y/N]? y
Remove tst/com/arsdumpgenerator/manifest/ [y/N]? y
Remove tst/com/arsdumpgenerator/s3/ [y/N]? y

-i for interactive
-f for force
-d for directory
-x for ignored files(add if required)

Note: Add -n or --dry-run to just check what it will do.

Answer 2

git clean -f -d -x $(git rev-parse --show-cdup) applies clean to the root directory, no matter where you call it within a repository directory tree. I use it all the time as it does not force you to leave the folder where you working now and allows to clean & commit right from the place where you are.

Be sure that flags -f, -d, -x match your needs:

-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.

-f, --force
       If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to
       false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless
       given -f, -n or -i. Git will refuse to delete directories with .git
       sub directory or file unless a second -f is given. This affects
       also git submodules where the storage area of the removed submodule
       under .git/modules/ is not removed until -f is given twice.

-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.

There are other flags as well available, just check git clean --help.

Answer 3

For me only following worked:

git clean -ffdx

In all other cases, I was getting message "Skipping Directory" for some subdirectories.

Answer 4

If untracked directory is a git repository of its own (e.g. submodule), you need to use -f twice:

git clean -d -f -f

Answer 5

OK, deleting unwanted untracked files and folders are easy using git in command line, just do it like this:

git clean -fd

Double check before doing it as it will delete the files and folders without making any history...

Also in this case, -f stands for force and -d stands for directory...

So, if you want to delete files only, you can use -f only:

git clean -f

If you want to delete(directories) and files, you can delete only untracked directories and files like this:

git clean -fd

Also, you can use -x flag for including the files which are ignored by git. This would be helpful if you want to delete everything.

And adding -i flag, makes git asking you for permission for deleting files one by one on the go.

If you not sure and want to check things first, add -n flag.

Use -q if you don't want to see any report after successful deletion.

I also create the image below to make it more memorable, especially I have seen many people confuse -f for cleaning folder sometimes or mix it up somehow!

Answer 6

git clean -f

will remove the untracked files from the current git

git clean -fd

when you want to remove directories and files, this will delete only untracked directories and files