How do I delete files locally without commiting these deletions to a remote repository while keeping a “clean” working tree?

Question

This question is essentially the opposite of this one.

There are certain files that exist for reasons on the team\'s remote. They are not frequently changed

Answer 1

The sparse-checkout should work.

Enable sparse-checkout:

git config core.sparsecheckout true

Create the config file .git/info/sparse-checkout and input the patterns:

*
!path/to/file1/you/want/to/delete
!path/to/file2/you/want/to/delete
!path/to/file3/you/want/to/delete

The patterns mean "to checkout everything(*) except(!) the rest paths".

Make it work:

git checkout

This way, these files are not checked out and everything is the same to you as long as you don't need to modify or checkout these files. In case you need these files to be checked out, remove or comment the file paths in .git/info/sparse-checkout and leave only *, and run git checkout again to checkout the hidden files.

Answer 2

You can try:

git update-index --assume-unchanged -- unWantedFile
rm unWantedFile
# work
# ...
# later on
git update-index --no-assume-unchanged -- unWantedFile
git restore unWantedFile

That should be enough to work in a working tree without that file, while telling Git the file is still there.

It works too with git update-index --skip-worktree -- unWantedFile.
I have written about the difference between the two here.