[git] How can I make git show a list of the files that are being tracked?

Using command line git, how can I make git show a list of the files that are being tracked in the repository?

This question is related to git

The answer is


You might want colored output with this.

I use this one-liner for listing the tracked files and directories in the current directory of the current branch:

ls --group-directories-first --color=auto -d $(git ls-tree $(git branch | grep \* | cut -d " " -f2) --name-only)

You might want to add it as an alias:

alias gl='ls --group-directories-first --color=auto -d $(git ls-tree $(git branch | grep \* | cut -d " " -f2) --name-only)'

If you want to recursively list files:

'ls' --color=auto -d $(git ls-tree -rt $(git branch | grep \* | cut -d " " -f2) --name-only)

And an alias:

alias glr="'ls' --color=auto -d \$(git ls-tree -rt \$(git branch | grep \\* | cut -d \" \" -f2) --name-only)"

The accepted answer only shows files in the current directory's tree. To show all of the tracked files that have been committed (on the current branch), use

git ls-tree --full-tree --name-only -r HEAD
  • --full-tree makes the command run as if you were in the repo's root directory.
  • -r recurses into subdirectories. Combined with --full-tree, this gives you all committed, tracked files.
  • --name-only removes SHA / permission info for when you just want the file paths.
  • HEAD specifies which branch you want the list of tracked, committed files for. You could change this to master or any other branch name, but HEAD is the commit you have checked out right now.

This is the method from the accepted answer to the ~duplicate question https://stackoverflow.com/a/8533413/4880003.


The files managed by git are shown by git ls-files. Check out its manual page.