Stash only one file out of multiple files that have changed with Git

Question

How can I stash only one of multiple changed files on my branch

User · Answer

I would use git stash save --patch  I don t find the interactivity to be annoying because there are options during it to apply the desired operation to entire files

User · Answer

Use git stash push  like this   git stash push  --    lt pathspec gt        For example   git stash push -- my file sh     This is available since Git 2 13  released in spring 2017

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For SourceTree users  pick the uncommited file you want to stash and click on the top toolbar button   Now stashes will be listed in the sidebar  you can apply them to the new checked out branch using right click

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The problem with VonC s  intermediate  solution of copying files to outside the Git repo is that you lose path information  which makes copying a bunch of files back later on somewhat of a hassle   A find it easier to use tar  similar tools will probably do  instead of copy    tar cvf  tmp stash tar path to some file path to some other file       etc   git checkout path to some file path to some other file git stash tar xvf  tmp stash tar etc   see VonC s  intermediate  suggestion

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Quick Answer    For revert a specific changed file in git  you can do the following line   git checkout  lt branch-name gt  --  lt file-path gt    Here is an actual example   git checkout master -- battery monitoring msg passing py

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If you do not want to specify a message with your stashed changes  pass the filename after a double-dash     git stash -- filename ext   If it s an untracked new file  you will have to stage it first   This method works in git versions 2 13

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You can simply do this   git stash push  filename    or with an optional message  git stash push -m  Some message   filename

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To stash a single file use git stash --patch  file    This is going to prompt  Stash this hunk  y n q a d j J g   e        Just type a  stash this hunk and all later hunks in the file  and you re fine

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Just in case you actually mean discard changes whenever you use git stash  and don t really use git stash to stash it temporarily   in that case you can use   git checkout --  lt file gt     NOTE    That git stash is just a quicker and simple alternative to branching and doing stuff

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Save the following code to a file  for example  named stash  Usage is stash  lt filename regex gt   The argument is the regular expression for the full path of the file  For example  to stash a b c txt  stash a b c txt or stash    c txt  etc     chmod  x stash   stash    xml   stash xyz xml   Code to copy into the file       usr bin expect -- log user 0 set filename regexp  lindex  argv 0   spawn git stash -p  for    1        expect       -re  diff --git a   filename regexp            set filename  expect out 1 string             diff --git a           set filename               Stash this hunk           if   filename                  send  n n          else           send  a n          send user   filename n                     Stash deletion           send  n n            eof         exit

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I wanted to do the same thing as well  but when I thought about it again  I realized that I don t really want to go with all the hassle to just keep one file  It would be much easier for me to copy it to somewhere else and add some comments to remind me why I kept it there   Don t get me wrong  there are tons of reasons why you would like to just stash a single file  and in general  utilizing version control software is always the best practice  But still  make sure you are not wasting your time  In my case  I just wanted to keep a file and discard all other changes  and pop it after I switch to a new branch  So cp mv worked well enough

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I ve reviewed answers and comments for this and a number of similar threads  Be aware that none of the following commands are correct for the purpose of being able to stash any specific tracked untracked files    git stash -p  --patch   select hunks manually  excluding untracked files git stash -k  --keep-index   stash all tracked untracked files and keep them in the working directory git stash -u  --include-untracked   stash all tracked untracked files git stash -p  --patch  -u  --include-untracked   invalid command   Currently  the most reasonable method to be able to stash any specific tracked untracked files is to    Temporarily commit the files you don t want to stash Add and stash Pop the temporary commit   I wrote a simple script for this procedure in an answer to another question  and there are steps for performing the procedure in SourceTree here

User · Answer

Since Git 2 13  Q2 2017   you can stash individual files  with git stash push  git stash push  -m  lt message gt    --    lt pathspec gt        When pathspec is given to  git stash push   the new stash records the modified states only for the files that match the pathspec See  quot Stash changes to specific files quot  for more   Simplified example   git stash push path to file  The test case for this feature shows a few more options off  test expect success  stash with multiple pathspec arguments         gt foo  amp  amp       gt bar  amp  amp       gt extra  amp  amp      git add foo bar extra  amp  amp       git stash push -- foo bar  amp  amp          test path is missing bar  amp  amp      test path is missing foo  amp  amp      test path is file extra  amp  amp       git stash pop  amp  amp      test path is file foo  amp  amp      test path is file bar  amp  amp      test path is file extra   The original answer  below  June 2010  was about manually selecting what you want to stash  Casebash comments   This  the stash --patch original solution  is nice  but often I ve modified a lot of files so using patch is annoying  bukzor s answer  upvoted  November 2011  suggests a more practical solution  based on git add   git stash --keep-index  Go see and upvote his answer  which should be the official one  instead of mine   About that option  chhh points out an alternative workflow in the comments   you should  quot git reset --soft quot  after such a stash to get your clear staging back  In order to get to the original state - which is a clear staging area and with only some select un-staged modifications  one could softly reset the index to get  without committing anything like you - bukzor - did      Original answer June 2010  manual stash  Yet  git stash save --patch could allows you to achieve the partial stashing you are after   With --patch  you can interactively select hunks from in the diff between HEAD and the working tree to be stashed  The stash entry is constructed such that its index state is the same as the index state of your repository  and its worktree contains only the changes you selected interactively  The selected changes are then rolled back from your worktree   However that will save the full index  which may not be what you want since it might include other files already indexed    and a partial worktree  which could look like the one you want to stash   git stash --patch --no-keep-index  might be a better fit   If --patch doesn t work  a manual process might  For one or several files  an intermediate solution would be to   copy them outside the Git repo  Actually  eleotlecram proposes an interesting alternative  git stash copy them back git stash   this time  only the files you want are stashed git stash pop stash  1    re-apply all your files modifications git checkout -- afile   reset the file to the HEAD content  before any local modifications  At the end of that rather cumbersome process  you will have only one or several files stashed

User · Answer

Another way to do this     Save everything git stash     Re-apply everything  but keep the stash git stash apply  git checkout  lt  files you don t want in your stash  gt     Save only the things you wanted saved git stash    Re-apply the original state and drop it from your stash git stash apply stash  1  git stash drop stash  1   git checkout  lt  files you put in your stash  gt    I came up with this after I  once again  came to this page and didn t like the first two answers  the first answer just doesn t answer the question and I didn t quite like working with the -p interactive mode    The idea is the same as what  VonC suggested using files outside the repository  you save the changes you want somewhere  remove the changes you don t want in your stash  and then re-apply the changes you moved out of the way  However  I used the git stash as the  somewhere   and as a result  there s one extra step at the end  removing the cahnges you put in the stash  because you moved these out of the way as well

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Since creating branches in Git is trivial you could just create a temporary branch and check the individual files into it

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If you want to stash only some of changed files  simply just Add other files in the Stage  Then execute git stash save --keep-index It will stash all unstaged changed files

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One complicated way would be to first commit everything   git add -u git commit    creates commit with sha-1 A   Reset back to the original commit but checkout the one file from the new commit   git reset --hard HEAD  git checkout A path to the one file   Now you can stash the one file   git stash   Cleanup by saving the committed content in your file system while resetting back to the original commit   git reset --hard A git reset --soft HEAD    Yeah  somewhat awkward

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Sometimes I ve made an unrelated change on my branch before I ve committed it  and I want to move it to another branch and commit it separately  like master   I do this   git stash git checkout master git stash pop git add  lt files that you want to commit gt  git commit -m  Minor feature  git stash git checkout topic1 git stash pop     lt resume work gt       Note the first stash  amp  stash pop can be eliminated  you can carry all of your changes over to the master branch when you checkout  but only if there are no conflicts  Also if you are creating a new branch for the partial changes you will need the stash   You can simplify it assuming no conflicts and no new branch   git checkout master git add  lt files that you want to commit gt  git commit -m  Minor feature  git checkout topic1     lt resume work gt       Stash not even needed

User · Answer

git add                               stage all the files git reset  lt pathToFileWillBeStashed gt    unstage file which will be stashed git stash                             stash the file s  git reset                              unstage all staged files git stash pop                          unstash file s

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In this situation I git add -p  interactive   git commit -m blah and then stash what s left if necessary

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When git stash -p  or git add -p with stash --keep-index  would be too cumbersome  I found it easier to use diff  checkout and apply   To  stash  a particular file dir only   git diff path to dir  gt  stashed diff git checkout path to dir   Then afterwards  git apply stashed diff

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Similar situation  Did commit and realized it s not ok   git commit -a -m  message  git log -p   Based on the answers this helped me     revert to previous state  keeping the files changed git reset HEAD   make sure it s ok git diff git status  revert the file we don t want to be within the commit git checkout specs nagios nagios spec  make sure it s ok git status git diff  now go ahead with commit git commit -a -m  same new message   eventually push tu remote git push

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Every answer here is so complicated     What about this to  stash    git diff  dir to file file to stash  gt   tmp stash patch git checkout --  dir to file file to stash   This to pop the file change back   git apply  tmp stash patch   Exact same behavior as stashing one file and popping it back in

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I found no answer to be what I needed and that is as easy as   git add -A git reset HEAD fileThatYouWantToStash git commit -m  committing all but one file  git stash   This stashes exactly one file

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You can also choose to stash just a single file  a collection of files  or individual changes from within files  If you pass the -p option  or --patch  to git stash  it will iterate through each changed  hunk  in your working copy and ask whether you wish to stash it     git stash -p   press one of the key as below and it will run that command  Command   Description  y         stash this hunk             search for a hunk by regex               help      n         don t stash this hunk       q         quit  any hunks that have already been selected will be stashed       s         split this hunk into smaller hunks

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This can be done easily in 3 steps using SourceTree    Temporarily commit everything you don t want stashed  Git add everything else  then stash it  Pop your temporary commit by running git reset  targetting the commit before your temporary one    This can all be done in a matter of seconds in SourceTree  where you can just click on the files  or even individual lines  you want to add   Once added  just commit them to a temporary commit   Next  click the checkbox to add all changes  then click stash to stash everything   With the stashed changes out of the way  glance over at your commit list and note the hash for the commit before your temporary commit  then run  git reset hash b4 temp commit   which is basically like  popping  the commit by resetting your branch to the commit right before it    Now  you re left with just the stuff you didn t want stashed

User · Answer

git stash push -p -m  quot my commit message quot   -p let s you select the hunks that should be stashed  whole files can be selected as well  You ll be prompted with a few actions for each hunk     y - stash this hunk    n - do not stash this hunk    q - quit  do not stash this hunk or any of the remaining ones    a - stash this hunk and all later hunks in the file    d - do not stash this hunk or any of the later hunks in the file    g - select a hunk to go to      - search for a hunk matching the given regex    j - leave this hunk undecided  see next undecided hunk    J - leave this hunk undecided  see next hunk    k - leave this hunk undecided  see previous undecided hunk    K - leave this hunk undecided  see previous hunk    s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks    e - manually edit the current hunk      - print help

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Solution  Local changes      file A  modified  not staged    file B  modified  not staged    file C  modified  not staged    To create a stash  my stash  with only the changes on file C   1  git add file C 2  git stash save --keep-index temp stash 3  git stash save my stash 4  git stash pop stash   1    Done     Explanation   add file C to the staging area create a temporary stash named  temp stash  and keep the changes on file C create the wanted stash   my stash   with only the changes on file C apply the changes in  temp stash   file A and file B  on your local code and delete the stash   You can use git status between the steps to see what is going on

User · Answer

When you try to switch between two branches  this situation occurs   Try to add the files using   git add filepath    Later execute this line      git stash --keep-index

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Update  2 14 2015  - I ve rewritten the script a bit  to better handle the case of conflicts  which should now be presented as unmerged conflicts rather than  rej files     I often find it more intuitive to do the inverse of  bukzor s approach  That is  to stage some changes  and then stash only those staged changes    Unfortunately  git doesn t offer a git stash --only-index or similar  so I whipped up a script to do this      bin sh    first  go to the root of the git repo cd  git rev-parse --show-toplevel     create a commit with only the stuff in staging INDEXTREE  git write-tree  INDEXCOMMIT  echo      git commit-tree  INDEXTREE -p HEAD     create a child commit with the changes in the working tree git add -A WORKINGTREE  git write-tree  WORKINGCOMMIT  echo      git commit-tree  WORKINGTREE -p  INDEXCOMMIT     get back to a clean state with no changes  staged or otherwise git reset -q --hard    Cherry-pick the index changes back to the index  and stash    This cherry-pick is guaranteed to succeed git cherry-pick -n  INDEXCOMMIT git stash    Now cherry-pick the working tree changes  This cherry-pick may fail   due to conflicts git cherry-pick -n  WORKINGCOMMIT  CONFLICTS  git ls-files -u  if test -z   CONFLICTS   then       If there are no conflicts  it s safe to reset  so that       any previously unstaged changes remain unstaged             However  if there are conflicts  then we don t want to reset the files       and lose the merge conflict info      git reset -q fi   You can save the above script as git-stash-index somewhere on your path  and can then invoke it as git stash-index     lt hack hack hack gt  git add  lt files that you want to stash gt  git stash-index   Now the stash contains a new entry that only contains the changes you had staged  and your working tree still contains any unstaged changes   In some cases  the working tree changes may depend on the index changes  so when you stash the index changes  the working tree changes have a conflict  In this case  you ll get the usual unmerged conflicts that you can resolve with git merge git mergetool etc

User · Answer

Let s say you have 3 files   a rb b rb c rb   and you want to stash only b rb and c rb but not a rb  you can do something like this    commit the files temporarily you don t want to stash git add a rb git commit -m  temp      then stash the other files git stash save  stash message     then undo the previous temp commit git reset --soft HEAD  git reset   And you are done  HTH

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Disclaimer  the following answer is for git before git 2 13  For git 2 13 and over  check out another answer further down     Warning  As noted in the comments  this puts everything into the stash  both staged and unstaged  The --keep-index just leaves the index alone after the stash is done  This can cause merge conflicts when you later pop the stash     This will stash everything that you haven t previously added  Just git add the things you want to keep  then run it   git stash --keep-index   For example  if you want to split an old commit into more than one changeset  you can use this procedure    git rebase -i  lt last good commit gt  Mark some changes as edit  git reset HEAD  git add  lt files you want to keep in this change gt  git stash --keep-index Fix things up as necessary  Don t forget to git add any changes  git commit git stash pop Repeat  from  5  as necessary  git rebase --continue

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I don t know how to do it on command line  only using SourceTree  Lets say you have changed file A  and have two change hunks in file B  If you want to stash only the second hunk in file B and leave everything else untouched  do this    Stage everything Perform changes to your working copy that undo all the changes in file A   e g  launch external diff tool and make files match   Make file B look as if only second change is applied to it   e g  launch external diff tool and undo first change   Create a stash using  Keep staged changes   Unstage everything Done

[git] Stash only one file out of multiple files that have changed with Git?

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