unable to remove file that really exists - fatal pathspec did not match any files

Question

unable to remove file that really exists - fatal  pathspec     did not match any files  I have a file under git control that simply will not be deleted  The failing command is     git rm  idea workspace xml fatal  pathspec   idea workspace xml  did not match any files  Below I list the directory contents  branches  etc  So far I ve tried rm from within the directory  and escaping just in case there are funny characters  and I m really stumped  I searched the web and SO but couldn t find this specifically    git branch -a   dot-output   master   remotes origin HEAD - gt  origin master   remotes origin master   remotes origin modelspace       git status   On branch dot-output   Untracked files           ls  idea  ant xml         encodings xml       modules xml     workspace xml compiler xml        inspectionProfiles  scopes copyright       libraries       testrunner xml dictionaries        misc xml        vcs xml    ls -al total 56 drwxr-xr-x  16 matt  staff    544 Apr 10 11 33   drwxr-xr-x  33 matt  staff   1122 Apr 10 09 40    -rw-r--r--   1 matt  staff  12292 Apr 10 11 19  DS Store drwxr-xr-x  18 matt  staff    612 Apr 10 11 39  git -rw-r--r--   1 matt  staff     98 Mar  6 13 40  gitignore drwxr-xr-x  16 matt  staff    544 Apr 10 11 34  idea -rw-r--r--   1 matt  staff   1113 Feb 25 11 07 README        head -n 2  idea workspace xml  lt  xml version  quot 1 0 quot  encoding  quot UTF-8 quot   gt   lt project version  quot 4 quot  gt     git rm  idea workspace xml fatal  pathspec   idea workspace xml  did not match any files  Update Answers from  Nevik and  Boris helped a lot  I realized that I was confused by a number of things going on  some of which were exacerbated by IntelliJ IDEA  a tool I generally love  BTW   First  the  fatal  pathspec  message from git rm is both unhelpful and misleading  Second  I had the file in  gitignore  but had removed it before asking my question  However  it was also included in IDEA s Ignored Files feature independently of git  and showed as such in the project viewer  instead of untracked  as git status showed   Finally  I had IDEA running while I was experimenting  and it looks like it was recreating the file immediately after my rm  My takeaway is that if I m getting confusing Git behavior  make sure to quit IDEA and work solely in the command line  and gitk  while debugging

User · Accepted Answer

Your file  idea workspace xml is not under git version control  You have either not added it yet  check git status Untracked files  or ignored it  using  gitignore or  git info exclude files   You can verify it using following git command  that lists all ignored files   git ls-files --others -i --exclude-standard

User · Answer

Move temporarily  gitignore to  gitignore bck

User · Answer

I know this is not the OP s problem  but I ran into the same error with an entirely different basis  so I just wanted to drop it here in case anyone else has the same  This is Windows-specific  and I assume does not affect Linux users   I had a LibreOffice doc file  call it final report odt  I later changed its case to Final Report odt  In Windows  this doesn t even count as a rename  final report odt  Final Report odt  FiNaL RePoRt oDt are all the same  In Linux  these are all distinct   When I eventually went to git rm  Final Report odt  and got the  pathspec did not match any files  error  Only when I use the original casing at the time the file was added --  git rm  final report odt  -- did it work   Lesson learned  to change the case I should have instead done   git mv  final report odt  temp odt git mv temp odt  Final Report odt    Again  that wasn t the problem for the OP here  and wouldn t affect a Linux user  as his posts shows he clearly is  I m just including it for others who may have this problem in Windows git and stumble onto this question

User · Answer

If your file idea workspace xml  is added to  gitignore  or its parent folder  just add it manually to git version control  Also you can add it using TortoiseGit  After the next push you will see  that your problem is solved

User · Answer

In my instance  there was something completely odd that I m not sure what the cause was   An entire folder was committed previously   I could see it in Git  Windows Explorer  and GitHub  but any changes I made to the folder itself and the files in it were ignored   Using git check-ignore to see what was ignoring it  and attempting to remove it using git rm --cached had no impact   The changes were not able to be staged   I fixed it by     Making a copy of the folder and files in another location  I deleted the original that was getting ignored somehow  Commit and push this update    Finally  I added the files and folder back and git was seeing and reacting to it as expected again  Stage and commit this  and you re good to go

User · Answer

Such steps helped me    git add    git stash

User · Answer

gt git add     gt git rm file Name     It works  You add new file using right click -  create new file  and immediately delete it after that  The file would go to the untracked file list

User · Answer

Personally I stumbled on a similar error message in this scenario   I created a folder that has been empty  so naturally as long as it is empty  typing git add   will not take this empty folder in consideration  So when I tried to run git rm -r   or simply git rm my empty folder  -r  I got that error message   The solution is to simply remove it without git  rm -r my empty folder   or create a data file within this folder and then add it  git add my no long empty folder

[git] unable to remove file that really exists - fatal: pathspec ... did not match any files

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