Recover from git reset --hard?

Question

Is there any way to recover uncommitted changes to the working directory from a git reset --hard HEAD?

Answer 1

You cannot get back uncommitted changes in general.

Previously staged changes (git add) should be recoverable from index objects, so if you did, use git fsck --lost-found to locate the objects related to it. (This writes the objects to the .git/lost-found/ directory; from there you can use git show <filename> to see the contents of each file.)

If not, the answer here would be: look at your backup. Perhaps your editor/IDE stores temp copies under /tmp or C:\TEMP and things like that.[1]

git reset HEAD@{1}

This will restore to the previous HEAD

[1] vim e.g. optionally stores persistent undo, eclipse IDE stores local history; such features might save your a**

Answer 2

I ran into same issue and I was almost going insane....initially i committed the project and merged.. later when i try running git push --set-upstream origin master i was getting this error

  fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories

so i ran git reset --hard HEAD and it deleted a 3 weeks project but these few commands below save the day:

git reset HEAD@{1}         //this command unstage changes after reset
git fsck --lost-found      //I got the dangling commit fc3b6bee2bca5d8a7e16b6adaca6a76e620eca4b
git show <dangling commit something like-> fc3b6bee2bca5d8a7e16b6adaca6a76e620eca4b>
git rebase fc3b6bee2bca5d8a7e16b6adaca6a76e620eca4b

hope this helps

Answer 3

 git reset HEAD@{4}

4 is changes before 4 steps ago. if you select a correct step, it should show the list of files that you removed from hard. then do:

$ git reflog show

it's going to show you local commit history we've already created. now do:

$ git reset --hard 8c4d112

8c4d112 is a code you want to reset your hard there. let's look at https://www.theserverside.com/video/How-to-use-the-git-reset-hard-command-to-change-a-commit-history to get more information.

Answer 4

I did git reset --hard on the wrong project by mistake (I know...). I had just worked on one file and it was still open during and after I ran the command.

Even though I had not committed, I was able to retrieve the old file with the simple COMMAND + Z.

Answer 5

You can get back a commit after doing a reset --hard HEAD.

Make use of "git reflog" to check the history of the HEAD in the branch.

You will see your commit and its id here.

Do a

git reset {commit Id of the commit you want to bring back}

Answer 6

If you luckily had the same files opened on another editor (eg. Sublime Text) try a ctrl-z on those. It just saved me..