How can I delete a file from a Git repository

Question

I have added a file named  file1 txt  to a Git repository  After that  I committed it  added a couple of directories called dir1 and dir2  and committed them to the Git repository   Now the current repository has  file1 txt   dir1  and dir2  How can I delete  file1 txt  without affecting others  like dir1 and dir2

User · Answer

go to your project dir and type  git filter-branch --tree-filter  rm -f  lt deleted-file gt   HEAD  after that push --force for delete file from all commits  git push origin --force --all

User · Answer

More generally  git help will help with at least simple questions like this   zhasper berens  media Kindle documents  git help usage  git  --version   --exec-path  GIT EXEC PATH    --html-path   -p --paginate --no-pager   --bare   --git-dir GIT DIR   --work-tree GIT WORK TREE   --help  COMMAND  ARGS   The most commonly used git commands are     add        Add file contents to the index         rm         Remove files from the working tree and from the index

User · Answer

According to the documentation   git rm --cached file1 txt When it comes to sensitive data   better not say that you removed the file but rather just include it in the last known commit  0  Amend last commit git commit --amend -CHEAD  If you want to delete the file from all git history  according to the documentation you should do the following  1  Remove it from your local history git filter-branch --force --index-filter    quot git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA quot     --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all   Replace PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA with the path to the file you want to remove  not just its filename   Don t forget to include this file in  gitignore  If it s a file you never want to share  such as passwords       echo  quot YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA quot   gt  gt   gitignore git add  gitignore git commit -m  quot Add YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA to  gitignore quot   3  If you need to remove from the remote git push origin --force --all  4  If you also need to remove it from tag releases  git push origin --force --tags

User · Answer

I have obj and bin files that accidentally made it into the repo that I don t want polluting my  changed files  list  After I noticed they went to the remote  I ignored them by adding this to  gitignore     obj    bin   Problem is they are already in the remote  and when they get changed  they pop up as changed and pollute the changed file list    To stop seeing them  you need to delete the whole folder from the remote repository   In a command prompt    CD to the repo folder  i e  C  repos MyRepo  I want to delete SSIS obj  It seems you can only delete at the top level  so you now need to CD into SSIS   i e  C  repos MyRepo SSIS   Now type the magic incantation git rm -r -f obj   rm remove -r   recursively remove -f   means force  cause you really mean it obj is the folder  Now run git commit -m  remove obj folder    I got an alarming message saying 13 files changed 315222 deletions  Then because I didn t want to have to look up the CMD line  I went into Visual Sstudio and did a Sync to apply it to the remote

User · Answer

Note  if you want to delete file only from git use below   git rm --cached file1 txt   If you want to delete also from hard disk   git rm file1 txt   If you want to remove a folder the folder may contain few files  so  you should remove using recursive command  as below   git rm -r foldername   If you want to remove a folder inside another folder  git rm -r parentFolder childFolder   Then  you can commit and push as usual  However  if you want to recover deleted folder  you can follow this  recover deleted files from git is possible      From doc   git rm  -f   --force   -n   -r   --cached   --ignore-unmatch   --quiet   --   lt file gt            OPTIONS       lt file gt       Files to remove  Fileglobs  e g    c  can be given to remove all matching files  If you want Git to expand file glob characters  you       may need to shell-escape them  A leading directory name  e g  dir to   remove dir file1 and dir file2  can be given to remove all files in   the directory  and recursively all sub-directories  but this requires   the -r option to be explicitly given    -f   --force  Override the up-to-date check        -n   --dry-run  Don   t actually remove any file s   Instead  just show if they exist in the index and would otherwise be removed by the command        -r  Allow recursive removal when a leading directory name is given        --   This option can be used to separate command-line options from the list of files   useful when filenames might be mistaken for       command-line options     --cached  Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index  Working tree files  whether modified or not  will be left alone        --ignore-unmatch  Exit with a zero status even if no files matched        -q   --quiet  git rm normally outputs one line  in the form of an rm command  for each file removed  This option suppresses that output     Read more on official doc

User · Answer

Use git rm   If you want to remove the file from the Git repository and the filesystem  use   git rm file1 txt git commit -m  remove file1 txt    But if you want to remove the file only from the Git repository and not remove it from the filesystem  use     git rm --cached file1 txt git commit -m  remove file1 txt    And to push changes to remote repo  git push origin branch name

User · Answer

Another way if you want to delete the file from your local folder using rm command and then push the changes to the remote server   rm file1 txt  git commit -a -m  Deleting files   git push origin master

User · Answer

For the case where git rm doesn t suffice and the file needs to be removed from history  As the git filter-branch manual page now itself suggests using git-filter-repo  and I had to do this today  here s an example using that tool  It uses the example repo https   example eguser eg git  Clone the repository into a new directory git clone https   example eguser eg git  Keep everything except the unwanted file  git-filter-repo --path file1 txt --invert-paths  Add the remote repository origin back   git remote add origin https   example eguser eg git  The git-filter-repo tool removes remote remote info by design and suggests a new remote repo  see point 4   This makes sense for big shared repos  but might be overkill for getting rid a single newly added file as in this example   When happy with the contents of local  replace remote with it  git push --force -u origin master  Forcing is required due to the changed history    Also note the useful --dry-run option and a good discussion in the linked manual on team and project dynamics before charging in and changing repository history

User · Answer

git rm will only remove the file on this branch from now on  but it remains in history and git will remember it   The right way to do it is with git filter-branch  as others have mentioned here  It will rewrite every commit in the history of the branch to delete that file   But  even after doing that  git can remember it because there can be references to it in reflog  remotes  tags and such   If you want to completely obliterate it in one step  I recommend you to use git forget-blob  https   ownyourbits com 2017 01 18 completely-remove-a-file-from-a-git-repository-with-git-forget-blob   It is easy  just do git forget-blob file1 txt   This will remove every reference  do git filter-branch  and finally run the git garbage collector git gc to completely get rid of this file in your repo

User · Answer

The answer by Greg Hewgill  that was edited by Johannchopin helped me  as I did not care about removing the file from the history completely  In my case  it was a directory  so the only change I did was using  git rm -r --cached myDirectoryName  instead of  quot git rm --cached file1 txt quot    followed by  git commit -m  quot deleted myDirectoryName from git quot  git push origin branch name  Thanks Greg Hewgill and Johannchopin

User · Answer

I tried a lot of the suggested options and none appeared to work  I won t list the various problems    What I ended up doing  which worked  was simple and intuitive  to me  was    move the whole local repo elsewhere clone the repo again from master to your local drive copy back the files folder from your original copy in  1 back into the new clone from  2 make sure that the problem large file is either not there or excluded in the  gitignore file do the usual git add git commit git push

User · Answer

If you need to remove files from a determined extension  for example  compiled files  you could do the following to remove them all at once   git remove -f   pyc

User · Answer

First Remove files from local repository      git rm -r File-Name   or  remove files only from local repository but from filesystem     git rm --cached File-Name  Secondly  Commit changes into local repository   git commit -m  unwanted files or some inline comments      Finally  update push local changes into remote repository   git push

User · Answer

Additionally  if it s a folder to be removed and it s subsequent child folders or files  use   git rm -r foldername

User · Answer

Just by going on the file in your github repository you can see the delete icon beside Raw Blame and don t forget to click on commit changes button  And you can see that your file has been deleted

User · Answer

To delete a specific file     git rm filename   To clean all the untracked files from a directory recursively in single shot     git clean -fdx

User · Answer

This is the only option that worked for me   git filter-branch -f --index-filter  git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch   sql    Note  Replace   sql with your file name or file type  Be very careful because this will go through every commit and rip this file type out    EDIT  pay attention - after this command you will not be able to push or pull - you will see the reject of  unrelated history  you can use  git push --force -u origin master  to push or pull

User · Answer

First  if you are using git rm  especially for multiple files  consider any wildcard will be resolved by the shell  not by the git command  git rm --   anExtension git commit -m  quot remove multiple files quot   But  if your file is already on GitHub  you can  since July 2013  directly delete it from the web GUI   Simply view any file in your repository  click the trash can icon at the top  and commit the removal just like any other web-based edit   Then  quot git pull quot  on your local repo  and that will delete the file locally too  Which makes this answer a  roundabout  way to delete a file from git repo   Not to mention that a file on GitHub is in a  quot git repo quot      the commit will reflect the deletion of that file     And just like that  it   s gone  For help with these features  be sure to read our help articles on creating  moving  renaming  and deleting files  Note  Since it   s a version control system  Git always has your back if you need to recover the file later   The last sentence means that the deleted file is still part of the history  and you can restore it easily enough  but not yet through the GitHub web interface   See  quot Restore a deleted file in a Git repo quot

User · Answer

If you want to delete the file from the repo  but leave it in the the file system  will be untracked    bykov gitserver   temp gt  git rm --cached file1 txt bykov gitserver   temp gt  git commit -m  remove file1 txt from the repo    If you want to delete the file from the repo and from the file system then there are two options    If the file has no changes staged in the index     bykov gitserver   temp gt  git rm file1 txt bykov gitserver   temp gt  git commit -m  remove file1 txt   If the file has changes staged in the index    bykov gitserver   temp gt  git rm -f file1 txt bykov gitserver   temp gt  git commit -m  remove file1 txt

User · Answer

Incase if you don t file in your local repo but in git repo  then simply open file in git repo through web interface and find Delete button at right corner in interface   Click Here  To view interface Delete Option

User · Answer

git rm file txt removes the file from the repo but also deletes it from the local file system   To remove the file from the repo and not delete it from the local file system use  git rm --cached file txt   The below exact situation is where I use git to maintain version control for my business s website  but the  mickey  directory was a tmp folder to share private content with a CAD developer  When he needed HUGE files  I made a private  unlinked directory and ftpd the files there for him to fetch via browser  Forgetting I did this  I later performed a git add -A from the website s base directory  Subsequently  git status showed the new files needing committing  Now I needed to delete them from git s tracking and version control     Sample output below is from what just happened to me  where I unintentionally deleted the  003 file  Thankfully  I don t care what happened to the local copy to  003  but some of the other currently changed files were updates I just made to the website and would be epic to have been deleted on the local file system   Local file system    the live website  not a great practice  but is reality         www   git rm shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 003 error   shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 003  has local modifications  use --cached to keep the file  or -f to force removal     www   git rm -f shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 003 rm  shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 003     www       www   git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage        deleted     shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 003     Changed but not updated       use  git add  lt file gt      to update what will be committed       use  git checkout --  lt file gt      to discard changes in working directory        modified    shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 001     modified    shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 002    www   ls shop mickey mtt flange S  shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 001  shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 002    www       www       www   git rm --cached shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 002 rm  shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 002     www   ls shop mickey mtt flange S  shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 001  shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 002    www       www       www   git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage        deleted     shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 002     deleted     shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 003     Changed but not updated      modified    shop mickey mtt flange SCN 7z 001    www     Update  This answer is getting some traffic  so I thought I d mention my other Git answer shares a couple of great resources  This page has a graphic that help demystify Git for me  The  Pro Git  book is online and helps me a lot

User · Answer

In my case I tried to remove file on github after few commits but save on computer  git filter-branch -f --index-filter  git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch file name with path  HEAD git push --force -u origin master   and later this file was ignored

User · Answer

If you have the GitHub for Windows application  you can delete a file in 5 easy steps    Click Sync  Click on the directory where the file is located and select your latest version of the file  Click on tools and select  Open a shell here   In the shell  type   rm  filename   and hit enter  Commit the change and resync

User · Answer

After you have removed the file from the repo with git rm you can use BFG Repo-Cleaner to completely and easily obliterate the file from the repo history

[git] How can I delete a file from a Git repository?

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