Remove directory from remote repository after adding them to gitignore

Question

I committed and pushed some directory to github  After that  I altered the  gitignore file adding a directory that should be ignored  Everything works fine  but the  now ignored  directory stays on github   How do I delete that directory from github and the repository history

User · Answer

This method applies the standard  gitignore behavior  and does not require manually specifying the files that need to be ignored  Can t use --exclude-from  gitignore anymore    - Here s the updated method  General advice  start with a clean repo - everything committed  nothing pending in working directory or index  and make a backup    commit up-to-date  gitignore  if not already existing   this command must be run on each branch git add  gitignore git commit -m  quot Create  gitignore quot    apply standard git ignore behavior only to current index  not working directory  --cached   if this command returns nothing  ensure   git info exclude AND OR  gitignore exist  this command must be run on each branch git ls-files -z --ignored --exclude-standard   xargs -0 git rm --cached   optionally add anything to the index that was previously ignored but now shouldn t be  git add     commit again  optionally use the --amend flag to merge this commit with the previous one instead of creating 2 commits   git commit -m  quot re-applied modified  gitignore quot    other devs who pull after this commit is pushed will see the  newly- gitignored files DELETED  If you also need to purge the newly-ignored files from the branch s commit history or if you don t want the newly-ignored files to be deleted from future pulls  see this answer

User · Answer

The rules in your  gitignore file only apply to untracked files   Since the files under that directory were already committed in your repository  you have to unstage them  create a commit  and push that to GitHub   git rm -r --cached some-directory git commit -m  Remove the now ignored directory  some-directory   git push origin master   You can t delete the file from your history without rewriting the history of your repository - you shouldn t do this if anyone else is working with your repository  or you re using it from multiple computers   If you still want to do that  you can use git filter-branch to rewrite the history - there is a helpful guide to that here   Additionally  note the output from git rm -r --cached some-directory will be something like   rm  some-directory product cache 1 small image 130x130 small image jpg  rm  some-directory product cache 1 small image 135x small image jpg  rm  some-directory  htaccess  rm  some-directory logo jpg    The rm is feedback from git about the repository  the files are still in the working directory

User · Answer

Blundell s first answer didn t work for me  However it showed me the right way  I have done the same thing like this    gt  for i in  git ls-files -i --exclude-from  gitignore   do git rm --cached  i  done  gt  git commit -m  Removed all files that are in the  gitignore   gt  git push origin master   I advise you to check the files to be deleted first by running the below statement   git ls-files -i --exclude-from  gitignore   I was using a default  gitignore file for visual studio and I noticed that it was removing all log and bin folders in the project which was not my intended action

User · Answer

As per my Answer here  How to remove a directory from git repository  To remove folder directory only from git repository and not from the local try 3 simple steps   Steps to remove directory git rm -r --cached FolderName git commit -m  quot Removed folder from repository quot  git push origin master   Steps to ignore that folder in next commits  To ignore that folder from next commits make one file in root named  gitignore and put that folders name into it  You can put as many as you want   gitignore file will be look like this  FolderName

User · Answer

I do this   git rm --cached  git ls-files -i --exclude-from  gitignore   git commit -m  Removed all files that are in the  gitignore   git push origin master   Which will remove all the files folders that are in your git ignore  saving you have to pick each one manually    This seems to have stopped working for me  I now do    git rm -r --cached     git add    git commit -m  Removed all files that are in the  gitignore    git push origin master

User · Answer

The answer from Blundell should work  but for some bizarre reason it didn t do with me  I had to pipe first the filenames outputted by the first command into a file and then loop through that file and delete that file one by one   git ls-files -i --exclude-from  gitignore  gt  to remove txt while read line  do  git rm -r --cached   line    done  lt  to remove txt rm to remove txt git commit -m  Removed all files that are in the  gitignore   git push origin master

User · Answer

Note  This solution works only with Github Desktop GUI   By using Github Desktop GUI it is very simple    Move the folder onto another location  to out of the project folder  temporarily  Edit your  gitignore file and remove the folder entry which would be remove master repository on the github page  Commit and Sync the project folder  Re-move the folder into the project folder Re-edit  gitignore file    That s all

User · Answer

If you re working from PowerShell  try the following as a single command   PS MyRepo gt  git filter-branch --force --index-filter  gt  gt   git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch -r     path   to   directory   gt  gt  --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all   Then  git push --force --all    Documentation  https   git-scm com docs git-filter-branch

[git] Remove directory from remote repository after adding them to .gitignore

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