Why are there two ways to unstage a file in Git

Question

Sometimes git suggests git rm --cached to unstage a file  sometimes git reset HEAD file  When should I use which   EDIT   D  code gt2 gt git init Initialized empty Git repository in D  code gt2  git  D  code gt2 gt touch a  D  code gt2 gt git status   On branch master     Initial commit     Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed            a nothing added to commit but untracked files present  use  git add  to track   D  code gt2 gt git add a  D  code gt2 gt git status   On branch master     Initial commit     Changes to be committed       use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage            new file    a   D  code gt2 gt git commit -m a  master  root-commit  c271e05  a  0 files changed  0 insertions     0 deletions -   create mode 100644 a  D  code gt2 gt touch b  D  code gt2 gt git status   On branch master   Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed            b nothing added to commit but untracked files present  use  git add  to track   D  code gt2 gt git add b  D  code gt2 gt git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage            new file    b

User · Answer

Quite simply     git rm --cached  lt file gt  makes git stop tracking the file completely  leaving it in the filesystem  unlike plain git rm   git reset HEAD  lt file gt  unstages any modifications made to the file since the last commit  but doesn t revert them in the filesystem  contrary to what the command name might suggest     The file remains under revision control    If the file wasn t in revision control before  i e  you re unstaging a file that you had just git added for the first time   then the two commands have the same effect  hence the appearance of these being  two ways of doing something      Keep in mind the caveat  DrewT mentions in his answer  regarding git rm --cached of a file that was previously committed to the repository  In the context of this question  of a file just added and not committed yet  there s nothing to worry about      I was scared for an embarrassingly long time to use the git reset command because of its name -- and still today I often look up the syntax to make sure I don t screw up   update  I finally took the time to summarize the usage of git reset in a tldr page  so now I have a better mental model of how it works  and a quick reference for when I forget some detail

User · Answer

if you ve accidentally staged files that you would not like to commit  and want to be certain you keep the changes  you can also use   git stash git stash pop   this performs a reset to HEAD and re-applies your changes  allowing you to re-stage individual files for commit  this is also helpful if you ve forgotten to create a feature branch for pull requests  git stash   git checkout -b  lt feature gt    git stash pop

User · Answer

git rm --cached is used to remove a file from the index  In the case where the file is already in the repo  git rm --cached will remove the file from the index  leaving it in the working directory and a commit will now remove it from the repo as well  Basically  after the commit  you would have unversioned the file and kept a local copy   git reset HEAD file   which by default is using the --mixed flag  is different in that in the case where the file is already in the repo  it replaces the index version of the file with the one from repo  HEAD   effectively unstaging the modifications to it   In the case of unversioned file  it is going to unstage the entire file as the file was not there in the HEAD  In this aspect git reset HEAD file and git rm --cached are same  but they are not same   as explained in the case of files already in the repo   To the question of Why are there 2 ways to unstage a file in git  - there is never really only one way to do anything in git  that is the beauty of it

User · Answer

I m surprised noone mentioned the git reflog  http   git-scm com docs git-reflog      git reflog  lt find the place before your staged anything gt    git reset HEAD  1    The reflog is a git history that not only tracks the changes to the repo  but also tracks the user actions  Eg  pull  checkout to different branch  etc  and allows to undo those actions  So instead of unstaging the file that was mistakingly staged  where you can revert to the point where you didn t stage the files   This is similar to git reset HEAD  lt file gt  but in certain cases may be more granular    Sorry - not really answering your question  but just pointing yet another way to unstage files that I use quite often  I for one like answers by Ryan Stewart and waldyrious very much      I hope it helps

User · Answer

It would seem to me that git rm --cached  lt file gt  removes the file from the index without removing it from the directory where a plain git rm  lt file gt  would do both  just as an OS rm  lt file gt  would remove the file from the directory without removing its versioning

User · Answer

These 2 commands have several subtle differences if the file in question is already in the repo and under version control  previously committed etc      git reset HEAD  lt file gt  unstages the file in the current commit  git rm --cached  lt file gt  will unstage the file for future commits also  It s unstaged untill it gets added again with git add  lt file gt     And there s one more important difference    After running git rm --cached  lt file gt  and push your branch to the remote  anyone pulling your branch from the remote will get the file ACTUALLY deleted from their folder  even though in your local working set the file just becomes untracked  i e  not physically deleted from the folder     This last difference is important for projects which include a config file where each developer on the team has a different config  i e  different base url  ip or port setting  so if you re using git rm --cached  lt file gt  anyone who pulls your branch will have to manually re-create the config  or you can send them yours and they can re-edit it back to their ip settings  etc    because the delete only effects people pulling your branch from the remote

User · Answer

1  D  code gt2 gt git status   On branch master     Initial commit     Changes to be committed       use  quot git rm --cached  lt file gt     quot  to unstage            new file    a   use  quot git rm --cached     quot  to unstage   git is a system of pointers  you do not have a commit yet to change your pointer to  the only way to  take files out of the bucket being pointed to  is to remove files you told git to watch for changes   2  D  code gt2 gt git commit -m a  master  root-commit  c271e05  a 0 files changed  0 insertions     0 deletions -  create mode 100644 a  git commit -m a  you commited   saved   3  D  code gt2 gt git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  quot git reset HEAD  lt file gt     quot  to unstage            new file    b     use  quot git reset HEAD     quot  to unstage   you made a commit in your code at this time now you can reset your pointer to your commit  revert back to last save

User · Answer

This thread is a bit old  but I still want to add a little demonstration since it is still not an intuitive problem   me  git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage        new file    to-be-added     modified    to-be-modified     deleted     to-be-removed    me  git reset -q HEAD to-be-added        ok  me  git reset -q HEAD to-be-modified        ok  me  git reset -q HEAD to-be-removed        ok    or alternatively   me  git reset -q HEAD to-be-added to-be-removed to-be-modified        ok  me  git status   On branch master   Changes not staged for commit       use  git add rm  lt file gt      to update what will be committed       use  git checkout --  lt file gt      to discard changes in working directory        modified    to-be-modified     deleted     to-be-removed     Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed        to-be-added no changes added to commit  use  git add  and or  git commit -a     git reset HEAD  without -q  gives a warning about the modified file and its exit code is 1 which will be considered as an error in a script   Edit  git checkout HEAD to-be-modified to-be-removed also works for unstaging  but removes the change completely from the workspace  Update git 2 23 0  From time to time  the commands change  Now  git status says      use  git restore --staged  lt file gt      to unstage        which works for all three types of change

User · Answer

git rm --cached  lt filePath gt  does not unstage a file  it actually stages the removal of the file s  from the repo  assuming it was already committed before  but leaves the file in your working tree  leaving you with an untracked file    git reset --  lt filePath gt  will unstage any staged changes for the given file s    That said  if you used git rm --cached on a new file that is staged  it would basically look like you had just unstaged it since it had never been committed before   Update git 2 24 In this newer version of git you can use git restore --staged instead of git reset  See git docs

User · Answer

Let s say you stage a whole directory via git add  lt folder gt   but you want to exclude a file from the staged list  i e  the list that generates when running git status  and keep the modifications within the excluded file  you were working on something and it s not ready for commit  but you don t want to lose your work      You could simply use    git reset  lt file gt   When you run git status  you will see that whatever file s  you reset are unstaged and the rest of the files you added are still in the staged list

User · Answer

In the newer version that is  gt  2 2 you can use git restore --staged  lt file name gt   Note here If you want to unstage  move to changes  your files one at a time you use above command with your file name  eg git restore --staged abc html  Now if you want unstage all your file at once  you can do something like this git restore --staged    Please note space and dot     which means consider staged all files

User · Answer

For versions 2 23 and above only   Instead of these suggestions  you could use git restore --staged  lt file gt  in order to unstage the file s

User · Answer

Just use   git reset HEAD  lt filename gt   This unstages the file and keeps the changes you did to it  so you can  in turn  change branches if you wanted and git add those files to another branch instead  All changes are kept

[git] Why are there two ways to unstage a file in Git?

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