Git pull - Please move or remove them before you can merge

Question

I am trying to do a git pull origin master from my server but keep getting the error:

Please move or remove them before you can merge.

Answer 1

I just faced the same issue and solved it using the following.First clear tracked files by using :

git clean -d -f

then try git pull origin master

You can view other git clean options by typing git clean -help

Answer 2

Apparently the files were added in remote repository, no matter what was the content of .gitignore file in the origin.

As the files exist in the remote repository, git has to pull them to your local work tree as well and therefore complains that the files already exist.

.gitignore is used only for scanning for the newly added files, it doesn't have anything to do with the files which were already added.

So the solution is to remove the files in your work tree and pull the latest version. Or the long-term solution is to remove the files from the repository if they were added by mistake.

A simple example to remove files from the remote branch is to

$git checkout <brachWithFiles>
$git rm -r *.extension
$git commit -m "fixin...."
$git push

Then you can try the $git merge again

Answer 3

To remove & delete all changes git clean -d -f

Answer 4

If you are getting error like

• branch master -> FETCH_HEAD error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge: src/dj/abc.html Please move or remove them before you merge. Aborting

Try removing the above file manually(Careful). Git will merge this file from master branch.

Answer 5

If there are too many files to delete, which is actually a case for me. You can also try the following solution:

1) fetch

2) merge with a strategy. For instance this one works for me:

git.exe merge --strategy=ours master