How do I configure git to ignore some files locally

Question

Can I ignore files locally without polluting the global git config for everyone else  I have untracked files that are spam in my git status but I don t want to commit git config changes for every single little random untracked file I have in my local branches

User · Accepted Answer

From the relevant Git documentation      Patterns which are specific to a particular repository but which do not need to be shared with other related repositories  e g   auxiliary files that live inside the repository but are specific to one user s workflow  should go into the  GIT DIR info exclude file    The  git info exclude file has the same format as any  gitignore file  Another option is to set core excludesFile to the name of a file containing global patterns   Note  if you already have unstaged changes you must run the following after editing your ignore-patterns   git update-index --assume-unchanged  lt file-list gt    Note on  GIT DIR  This is a notation used all over the git manual simply to indicate the path to the git repository  If the environment variable is set  then it will override the location of whichever repo you re in  which probably isn t what you want     Edit  Another way is to use   git update-index --skip-worktree  lt file-list gt    Reverse it by   git update-index --no-skip-worktree  lt file-list gt

User · Answer

In order to ignore untracked files especially if they are located in  a few  folders that are not tracked  a simple solution is to add a  gitignore file to every untracked folder and enter in a single line containing   followed by a new line  It s a really simple and straightforward solution if the untracked files are in a few folders  For me  all files were coming from a single untracked folder vendor and the above just worked

User · Answer

this is a kind of brief solution that add a row to local exclude file   echo YOURFILE OR DIRECTOY  gt  gt   git info exclude

User · Answer

For anyone who wants to ignore files locally in a submodule  Edit my-parent-repo  git modules my-submodule info exclude with the same format as a  gitignore file

User · Answer

You can install some git aliases to make this process simpler  This edits the  alias  node of your  gitconfig file   git config --global alias ignore  update-index --skip-worktree  git config --global alias unignore  update-index --no-skip-worktree  git config --global alias ignored   git ls-files -v   grep   S     The shortcuts this installs for you are as follows    git ignore config xml   git will pretend that it doesn t see any changes upon config xml     preventing you from accidentally committing those changes   git unignore config xml   git will resume acknowledging your changes to config xml     allowing you again to commit those changes   git ignored   git will list all the files which you are  ignoring  in the manner described above       I built these by referring to phatmann s answer     which presents an --assume-unchanged version of the same   The version I present uses --skip-worktree for ignoring local changes  See Borealid s answer for a full explanation of the difference  but essentially --skip-worktree s purpose is for developers to change files without the risk of committing their changes   The git ignored command presented here uses git ls-files -v  and filters the list to show just those entries beginning with the S tag  The S tag denotes a file whose status is  skip worktree   For a full list of the file statuses shown by git ls-files  see the documentation for the -t option on git ls-files

User · Answer

If your repo doesn t already have a  gitignore file  then a simple solution is to create a  gitignore file  and in it add  gitignore to the list of files to be ignored

User · Answer

You can simply add a  gitignore file to your home directory  i e   HOME  gitignore or    gitignore  Then tell git to use that file with the command   git config --global core excludesfile    gitignore   This is a normal  gitignore file which git references when deciding what to ignore  Since it s in your home directory  it applies only to you and doesn t pollute any project  gitignore files   I ve been using this approach for years with great results

User · Answer

Both --assume-unchanged and --skip-worktree are NOT A CORRECT WAY to ignore files locally    Kindly check this answer and the notes in the documentation of git update-index  Files that for any reason keep changing frequently  and or change from a clone to another  and their changes should not be committed  then these files SHOULD NOT be tracked in the first place   However  the are two proper ways to ignore files locally  both work with untracked files   Either to put files names in  git info exclude file which is the local alternative of  gitignore but specific to the current clone  Or to use a global  gitignore  which should be properly used only for common auxiliary files e g  pyz  pycache  etc  and the file will be ignored in any git repo in your machine   To make the above as kind of automated  adding to exclude or global  gitignore   you can use the following commands  add to your bash-profile       Per clone local exclude  Note that you should be in the root of the repository when calling the command because of using the relative path   change   FILE-NAME   to  git info exclude Global  gitignore  first make global  gitignore here then change   FILE-NAME   to    gitignore   Linux  alias git-ignore  echo  1  gt  gt    FILE-NAME    alias git-show-ignored  cat   FILE-NAME    git-unignore      GITFILETOUNIGNORE   1             sed -i    GITFILETOUNIGNORE d    FILE-NAME     unset GITFILETOUNIGNORE     MacOS  you need the  bak for sed inplace modifications  i e  you are forced to add a file extension to inplace sed  i e  make a backup before replacing something   therefore to delete the  bak file I added rm filename bak   alias git-ignore  echo  1  gt  gt    FILE-NAME    alias git-show-ignored  cat   FILE-NAME    git-unignore      GITFILETOUNIGNORE   1             sed -i bak    GITFILETOUNIGNORE d    FILE-NAME     rm   FILE-NAME   bak   unset GITFILETOUNIGNORE     Then you can do   git-ignore example file txt git-unignore example file txt

User · Answer

Add the following lines to the  alias  section of your  gitconfig file  ignore   update-index --assume-unchanged unignore   update-index --no-assume-unchanged ignored    git ls-files -v   grep      lower       Now you can use git ignore my file to ignore changes to the local file  and git unignore my file to stop ignoring the changes  git ignored lists the ignored files   This answer was gleaned from http   gitready com intermediate 2009 02 18 temporarily-ignoring-files html

User · Answer

I think you are looking for   git update-index --skip-worktree FILENAME   which ignore changes made local  Here s http   devblog avdi org 2011 05 20 keep-local-modifications-in-git-tracked-files  more explanation about these solution   to undo use   git update-index --no-skip-worktree FILENAME

User · Answer

You have several options    Leave a dirty  or uncommitted   gitignore file in your working dir  or apply it automatically using topgit or some other such patch tool   Put the excludes in your  GIT DIR info exclude file  if this is specific to one tree  Run git config --global core excludesfile    gitignore and add patterns to your    gitignore   This option applies if you want to ignore certain patterns across all trees   I use this for  pyc and  pyo files  for example    Also  make sure you are using patterns and not explicitly enumerating files  when applicable

User · Answer

Update  Consider using git update-index --skip-worktree   lt file gt      instead  thanks  danShumway  See Borealid s explanation on the difference of the two options     Old answer   If you need to ignore local changes to tracked files  we have that with local modifications to config files   use git update-index --assume-unchanged   lt file gt

[git] How do I configure git to ignore some files locally?

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