How do I remove a submodule

Question

How do I remove a Git submodule   By the way  is there a reason I can t simply do  git submodule rm whatever

User · Answer

I recently find out a git project which include many useful git related command: https://github.com/visionmedia/git-extras

Install it and type :

git-delete-submodule submodule

Then things are done. The submodule directory will be removed from your repo and still exist in your filesystem. You can then commit the change like: git commit -am "Remove the submodule".

User · Answer

Simple steps   Remove config entries git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule  submodulename git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section submodule  submodulename Remove directory from index git rm --cached  submodulepath Commit Delete unused files rm -rf  submodulepathrm -rf  git modules  submodulename   Please note   submodulepath doesn t contain leading or trailing slashes   Background  When you do git submodule add  it only adds it to  gitmodules  but once you did git submodule init  it added to  git config   So if you wish to remove the modules  but be able to restore it quickly  then do just this   git rm --cached  submodulepath git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule  submodulepath   It is a good idea to do git rebase HEAD first and git commit at the end  if you put this in a script   Also have a look at an answer to Can I unpopulate a Git submodule

User · Answer

Here are the 4 steps that I found necessary or useful  important ones first    git rm -f the submodule rm -rf  git modules the submodule git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule the submodule git commit -m         In theory  git rm in step 1 should take care of it  Hopefully  the second part of OP question can be answered positively one day  that this can be done in one command     But as of July 2017  step 2 is necessary to remove data in  git modules  for otherwise  you can t e g  add the submodule back in the future    You can probably get away with the above two steps for git 1 8 5  as tinlyx s answer noted  as all git submodule commands seem to work   Step 3 removes the section for the submodule in the file  git config  This should be done for completeness   The entry may cause problems for older git versions  but I don t have one to test    For this  most answers suggest using git submodule deinit  I find it more explicit and less confusing to use git config -f  git config --remove-section  According to the git-submodule documentation  git deinit      Unregister the given submodules     If you really want to remove a   submodule from the repository and commit that use git-rm 1    instead    Last but not least  if you don t  git commit  you will may get an error when doing git submodule summary  as of git 2 7    fatal  Not a git repository   the submodule  git    the submodule 73f0d1d   0000000    This is regardless of whether you do steps 2 or 3

User · Answer

With git 2 17 and above it s just   git submodule deinit -f  module name  git add  module name  git commit

User · Answer

I ve created a bash script to ease the removal process  It also checks whether there are changes in the repo left unsaved and asks for confirmation   It has been tested on os x would be interesting to know if it works as is on common linux distros as well   https   gist github com fabifrank cdc7e67fd194333760b060835ac0172f

User · Answer

Via the page Git Submodule Tutorial   To remove a submodule you need to    Delete the relevant section from the  gitmodules file  Stage the  gitmodules changes git add  gitmodules Delete the relevant section from  git config  Remove the submodule files from the working tree and index git rm --cached path to submodule  no trailing slash   Remove the submodule s  git directory rm -rf  git modules path to submodule Commit the changes git commit -m  Removed submodule  lt name gt   Delete the now untracked submodule files rm -rf path to submodule   See also  alternative steps below

User · Answer

To summarize  this is what you should do    Set path to submodule var  no trailing slash    path to submodule path to submodule   Delete the relevant line from the  gitmodules file   git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section submodule  path to submodule   Delete the relevant section from  git config  git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule  path to submodule   Unstage and remove  path to submodule only from the index  to prevent losing information   git rm --cached  path to submodule   Track changes made to  gitmodules  git add  gitmodules   Commit the superproject  git commit -m  Remove submodule submodule name    Delete the now untracked submodule files  rm -rf  path to submodule  rm -rf  git modules  path to submodule   See also   Alternative guide lines

User · Answer

What I m currently doing Dec 2012  combines most of these answers     oldPath  vendor example  git config -f  git config --remove-section  submodule   oldPath   git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section  submodule   oldPath   git rm --cached    oldPath   rm -rf    oldPath                   remove src  optional  rm -rf   git modules   oldPath      cleanup gitdir  optional housekeeping  git add  gitmodules git commit -m  Removed   oldPath

User · Answer

I found deinit works good for me  git submodule deinit  lt submodule-name gt      git rm  lt submodule-name gt   From git docs   deinit Unregister the given submodules  i e  remove the whole submodule  name section from  git config together with their work tree

User · Answer

In case you need to do it in one line command with bash script as below     cd  path to your repo  amp  amp   bin bash  HOME remove submodule sh  path to the submodule  Create bash script file in the  HOME dir named i e  remove submodule sh      bin bash  git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section submodule  1 git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule  1 git rm --cached  1 git add  gitmodules git commit -m  Remove submodule in  1  rm -rf  1 rm -rf  git modules  1 git push origin   git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD  --force --quiet

User · Answer

A submodule can be deleted by running git rm  lt submodule path gt   amp  amp  git commit  This can be undone using git revert    The deletion removes the superproject s tracking data  which are both the gitlink entry and the section in the  gitmodules file   The submodule s working directory is removed from the file system  but the Git directory is kept around as it to make it possible to checkout past commits without requiring fetching from another repository   To completely remove a submodule  additionally manually delete  GIT DIR modules  lt name gt      Source  git help submodules

User · Answer

Since git1 8 3  April 22d  2013       There was no Porcelain way to say  I no longer am interested in this submodule   once you express your interest in a submodule with  submodule init      submodule deinit  is the way to do so     The deletion process also uses git rm  since git1 8 5 October 2013      Summary  The 3-steps removal process would then be   0  mv a submodule a submodule tmp  1  git submodule deinit -f -- a submodule     2  rm -rf  git modules a submodule 3  git rm -f a submodule   Note  a submodule  no trailing slash     or  if you want to leave it in your working tree and have done step 0 3    git rm --cached a submodule 3bis mv a submodule tmp a submodule   Explanation  rm -rf  This is mentioned in Daniel Schroeder s answer  and summarized by Eonil in the comments      This leaves  git modules  lt path-to-submodule gt   unchanged    So if you once delete a submodule with this method and re-add them again  it will not be possible because repository already been corrupted      git rm  See commit 95c16418      Currently using  git rm  on a submodule removes the submodule s work tree from that of the superproject and the gitlink from the index    But the submodule s section in  gitmodules is left untouched  which is a leftover of the now removed submodule and might irritate users  as opposed to the setting in  git config  this must stay as a reminder that the user showed interest in this submodule so it will be repopulated later when an older commit is checked out        Let  git rm  help the user by not only removing the submodule from the work tree but by also removing the  submodule  lt submodule name gt   section from the  gitmodules file and stage both      git submodule deinit  It stems from this patch      With  git submodule init  the user is able to tell git they care about one or more submodules and wants to have it populated on the next call to  git submodule update     But currently there is no easy way they can tell git they do not care about a submodule anymore and wants to get rid of the local work tree  unless the user knows a lot about submodule internals and removes the  submodule  name url  setting from  git config together with the work tree himself        Help those users by providing a  deinit  command    This removes the whole submodule  lt name gt  section from  git config either for the given   submodule s   or for all those which have been initialized if     is given     Fail if the current work tree contains modifications unless forced    Complain when for a submodule given on the command line the url setting can t be found in  git config  but nonetheless don t fail     This takes care if the  de initialization steps   git config and  git modules xxx   Since git1 8 5  the git rm takes also care of the     add  step which records the url of a submodule in the  gitmodules file  it is need to removed for you  the submodule special entry  as illustrated by this question   the git rm removes it from the index  git rm --cached path to submodule  no trailing slash  That will remove that directory stored in the index with a special mode  160000   marking it as a submodule root directory    If you forget that last step  and try to add what was a submodule as a regular directory  you would get error message like   git add mysubmodule file txt  Path  mysubmodule file txt  is in submodule  mysubmodule      Note  since Git 2 17  Q2 2018   git submodule deinit is no longer a shell script  It is a call to a C function   See commit 2e61273  commit 1342476  14 Jan 2018  by Prathamesh Chavan  pratham-pc    Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit ead8dbe  13 Feb 2018     git   wt prefix  -C   wt prefix   submodule--helper deinit       GIT QUIET  --quiet        prefix  --prefix   prefix         force  --force        deinit all  --all

User · Answer

For the benefit of the reader  this here tries to sum it up and give a step-by-step guide on how to do it if things do not work as expected   Following is the tested and safe way for git version 2 17 and above to get rid of a submodule   submodule  path to sub                 no trailing slash  git submodule deinit --   submodule  git rm --   submodule     If this does not work for you  see below  No options   Nothing dangerous   And do not even consider doing more  Tested with Debian Buster 2 20 1 and Ubuntu 18 04 2 17 1    submodule  is just to emphasize where to put the name  and that you have to be careful with spaces and the like If on Windows ignore the first line and replace   submodule  with the Windows way of a properly specified path to the submodule    I am not Windows       Warning       Never touch the insides of the  git directory yourself   Editing inside  git enters the dark side   Stay away at all cost       And yes  you can blame git for this  as many handy things were missing in git in the past   Like a proper way to remove submodules again       I think there is a very dangerous part in the documentation of git submodule    It recommends to remove  GIT DIR modules  lt name gt   yourself    In my understanding this is not only plain wrong  it is extremely dangerous and provokes major headaches in future   See below    Note that  git module deinit   is the direct inverse to  git module init   but  git submodule deinit -- module git rm -- module   also is quite the inverse to  git submodule add -- URL module git submodule update --init --recursive -- module   because some commands basically need to do more than just a single thing    git submodule deinit -- module    1  updates  git config  git rm    2  removes the files of the module  3  thereby recursively removes the submodules of the submodule  4  updates  gitmodules  git submodule add   pulls in the data to  git modules NAME   1  does git submodule init  so updates  git config  2  does git submodule update  so  nonrecursively checks out the module  4  updates  gitmodules  git submodule update --init --recursive -- module   pulls in further data if needed  3  checks out the submodules of the submodule recursively    This cannot be fully symmetric  as keeping it strictly symmetric does not make much sense   There simply is no need for more than two commands   Also  pulling in the data  is implicit  because you need it  but removing the cached information is not done  because this is not needed at all and might wipe precious data   This truly is puzzling to newcomers  but basically is a good thing   git just does the obviously thing and does that right  and does not even try to do more   git is a tool  which must do a reliable job  instead of being just another  Eierlegende Wollmilchsau    Eierlegende Wollmilchsau  translates for me to  some evil version of a Swiss army knife     So I understand complaints of people  saying  Why doesn t do git the obvious thing for me    This is because  obvious  here depends from the point of view   Reliability in each and every situation is far more important   Hence what s obvious for you often is not the right thing in all possible technical situations   Please remember that   AFAICS git follows the technical path  not the social one    Hence the clever name  git   If this fails  The commands above may fail due to following    Your git is too old   Then use a newer git    See below how to   You have uncommitted data and might lose data   Then better commit them first  Your submodule is not clean in a git clean sense   Then first clean your submodule using that command    See below   You have done something in the past which is unsupported by git   Then you are on the dark side and things get ugly and complicated    Perhaps using another machine fixes it   Perhaps there are more ways to fail I am not aware of  I am just some git power-user     Possible fixes follow   Use a newer git  If your machine is too old there is no submodule deinit in your git   If you do not want  or can  update your git  then just use another machine with a newer git   git is meant to be fully distributed  so you can use another git to get the job done    workhorse   path to worktree  git status --porcelain must not output anything   If it does  cleanup things first  workhorse   path to worktree  ssh account othermachine othermachine    git clone --recursive me workhorse path to worktree  git TMPWORK  amp  amp  cd TMPWORK Now do the submodule stuff othermachine   TMPWORK  git commit   -m    amp  amp  exit workhorse   path to worktree  git fetch account othermachine TMPWORK  git workhorse   path to worktree  git merge --ff-only FETCH HEAD   If this does not work  use git reset --soft FETCH HEAD Now cleanup things  until git status is clean again   You are able to do so  because you have had it clean before  thanks to the first step    This othermachine can be some VM  or some Ubuntu WSL under Windows  whatever   Even a chroot  but I assume that you are non-root  because if you are root it should be more easy to update to the newer git    Note that if you cannot ssh in  there are trainloads of ways to transport git repositories   You can copy your worktree on some USB stick  including the  git directory   and clone from the stick   Clone the copy  just to get things in a clean fashion again   This might be a PITA  in case your submodules are not accessible from othermachine directly   But there is a solution for this  too   git config --add url NEWURLPREFIX insteadOf ORIGINALURLPREFIX   You can use this multiply  and this is saved into  HOME  gitconfig   Something like  git config --add  url  mnt usb repo  insteadof  https   github com    rewrites URLs like  https   github com XXX YYY git   into   mnt usb repo XXX YYY git   It s easy if you start to become accustomed to powerful git features like this   Cleanup things first  Cleaning manually up is good  because this way you perhaps detect some things you forgot about    If git complains about unsaved stuff  commit and push it somewhere safe  If git complains about some leftovers  git status and git clean -ixfd is your friend Try to abstain from options to rm and deinit as long as you can   Options  like -f  for git are good if you are a Pro   But as you came here  you probably are not so experienced in the submodule area   So better be safe than sorry    Example     git status --porcelain  M two   git submodule deinit two error  the following file has local modifications      two  use --cached to keep the file  or -f to force removal  fatal  Submodule work tree  two  contains local modifications  use  -f  to discard them   cd two   git submodule deinit --all error  the following file has local modifications      md5chk  use --cached to keep the file  or -f to force removal  fatal  Submodule work tree  md5chk  contains local modifications  use  -f  to discard them   cd md5chk   git submodule deinit --all error  the following file has local modifications      tino  use --cached to keep the file  or -f to force removal  fatal  Submodule work tree  tino  contains local modifications  use  -f  to discard them   cd tino   git status --porcelain    NEW   git clean -i -f -d Would remove the following item    NEW     Commands         1  clean                2  filter by pattern    3  select by numbers    4  ask each     5  quit                 6  help What now gt  1 Removing NEW   cd            git status --porcelain   git submodule deinit two Cleared directory  two  Submodule  someunusedname   https   github com hilbix src git  unregistered for path  two    You see  there is no -f needed on submodule deinit   If things are clean  in a git clean sense   Also note that git clean -x is not needed   This means git submodule deinit unconditionally removes untracked files which are ignored   This is usually what you want  but do not forget about it   Sometimes ignored files might be precious  like cached data which takes hours to days to be calculated again   Why never remove  GIT DIR modules  lt name gt     Probably people want to remove the cached repository  because they are afraid to run into a problem later   This is true  but running into that  problem  is the correct way to solve it   Because the fix is easy  and done right you will be able to live happily ever after   This avoids more cumbersome trouble than when you remove the data yourself   Example   mkdir tmptest  amp  amp  cd tmptest  amp  amp  git init  amp  amp  git submodule add https   github com hilbix empty git two  amp  amp  git commit -m    amp  amp  git submodule deinit two  amp  amp  git rm two  amp  amp  git commit -m    amp  amp  git submodule add https   github com hilbix src git two   The last line outputs following error   A git directory for  two  is found locally with remote s     origin    https   github com hilbix empty git If you want to reuse this local git directory instead of cloning again from   https   github com hilbix src git use the  --force  option  If the local git directory is not the correct repo or you are unsure what this means choose another name with the  --name  option    Why this error   Because  git modules two  previously was populated from https   github com hilbix empty git and now shall be re-populated from something else  namely https   github com hilbix src git   You won t see this if you re-populate it from https   github com hilbix empty git  What to do now   Well  just do exactly as told   Use --name someunusedname  git submodule add --name someunusedname https   github com hilbix src git two    gitmodules then looks like   submodule  someunusedname       path   two     url   https   github com hilbix src git   ls -1p  git modules  gives  someunusedname  two    This way in future you can switch branches commit forward and backward and will never get into any trouble again  due to two  having two different  and possibly incompatible  upstream repositories   And the best is   You keep both cached locally  too    This is not only true for you   It also is true for all others using your repository  And you do not lose history   In case you forgot to push the very latest version of the old submodule  you can enter the local copy and do so later on   Note that it is quite common that somebody forgets to push some submodules  because this is a PITA for newcomers  until they became accustomed to git     However if you removed the cached directory  both different checkouts will stumble upon each other  because you will not use the --name options  right   So each time you do the checkout you perhaps have to remove the  git modules  lt module gt   directory again and again   This is extremely cumbersome and makes it hard to use something like git bisect   So there is a very technical reason to keep this module directory as a placeholder   People who recommend to remove something below  git modules  either do not know better or forget to tell you that this makes powerful features like git bisect nearly impossible to use if this crosses such a submodule incompatibility   A further reason is shown above   Look at the ls   What do you see there   Well  the 2nd variant of module two  is not under  git modules two   it is under  git modules someunusedname    So things like git rm  module  rm -f  git module  module are totally wrong   You must either consult module  git or  gitmodules to find the right thing to remove   So not only most other answers fall into this dangerous trap  even very popular git extensions had this bug  it s now fixed there    So better keep your hands of the  git  directory if you do not exactly  what you are doing      And from the philosophical view  wiping history is always wrong    Except for quantum mechanics  as usual  but this is something completely different    FYI you probably guessed it  hilbix is my GitHub account

User · Answer

Just a note  Since git 1 8 5 2  two commands will do   git rm the submodule rm -rf  git modules the submodule   As  Mark Cheverton s answer correctly pointed out  if the second line isn t used  even if you removed the submodule for now  the remnant  git modules the submodule folder will prevent the same submodule from being added back or replaced in the future  Also  as  VonC mentioned  git rm will do most of the job on a submodule   --Update  07 05 2017 --  Just to clarify  the submodule is the relative path of the submodule inside the project  For example  it s subdir my submodule if the submodule is inside a subdirectory subdir   As pointed out correctly in the comments and other answers  the two commands  although functionally sufficient to remove a submodule   do leave a trace in the  submodule  the submodule   section of  git config  as of July 2017   which can be removed using a third command   git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule the submodule 2 gt   dev null

User · Answer

I just found the  submodule  forgot exact name  hidden file  it has a list    you can erase them individually that way  I just had one  so I deleted it  Simple  but it might mess up Git  since I don t know if anything s attached to the submodule  Seems ok so far  aside from libetpan s usual upgrade issue  but that s  hopefully  unrelated    Noticed nobody posted manual erasing  so added

User · Answer

project dir        foo project  submodule          foo project lib asubmodule - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - run    1    cd   foo project   2    git rm lib asubmodule  amp  amp             rm  git modules lib asubmodule  amp  amp               git submodule lib asubmodule deinit --recursive --force

User · Answer

To remove a submodule added using   git submodule add blah blah com repos blah git lib blah   Run   git rm lib blah   That s it    For old versions of git  circa  1 8 5  use   git submodule deinit lib blah git rm lib blah git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section submodule lib blah

User · Answer

In latest git just 4 operation is needed to remove the git submodule    Remove corresponding entry in   gitmodules Stage changes git add  gitmodules Remove the submodule directory git rm --cached  lt path to submodule gt  Commit it git commit -m  Removed submodule xxx

User · Answer

Thats easy    Remove the section from  gitmodules Call  git add  gitmodules Call  git submodule deinit  lt path to submodule gt  Call  git rm  lt path to submodule gt  Commit and Push   You will have to delete the module files on your project manually

User · Answer

The majority of answers to this question are outdated  incomplete  or unnecessarily complex   A submodule cloned using git 1 7 8 or newer will leave at most four traces of itself in your local repo  The process for removing those four traces is given by the three commands below     Remove the submodule entry from  git config git submodule deinit -f path to submodule    Remove the submodule directory from the superproject s  git modules directory rm -rf  git modules path to submodule    Remove the entry in  gitmodules and remove the submodule directory located at path to submodule git rm -f path to submodule

User · Answer

Removing git submodule  To remove a git submodule below 4 steps are needed    Remove the corresponding entry in   gitmodules file  Entry might be like mentioned below    submodule  path to submodule       path   path to submodule     url   url path to submodule    Stage changes git add  gitmodules Remove the submodule directory git rm --cached  lt path to submodule gt   Commit it git commit -m  Removed submodule xxx  and push    Additional 2 more steps mentioned below are needed to clean submodule completely in local cloned copy    Remove the corresponding entry in  git config file  Entry might be like mentioned below    submodule  path to submodule       url   url path to submodule    Do rm -rf  git modules path to submodule   These 5th and 6th steps does not creates any changes which needs commit

User · Answer

I had to take John Douthat s steps one step further and cd into the submodule s directory  and then remove the Git repository    cd submodule rm -fr  git   Then I could commit the files as a part of the parent Git repository without the old reference to a submodule

User · Answer

In addition to the recommendations  I also had to rm -Rf  git modules path to submodule to be able to add a new submodule with the same name  in my case I was replacing a fork with the original

User · Answer

If the submodule was accidentally added because you added  committed and pushed a folder that was already a Git repository  contained  git   you won   t have a  gitmodules file to edit  or anything in  git config  In this case all you need is    git rm --cached subfolder git add subfolder git commit -m  Enter message here  git push   FWIW  I also removed the  git folder before doing the git add

User · Answer

Here is what I did    1   Delete the relevant section from the  gitmodules file  You can use below command   git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section  submodule submodule name    2   Stage the  gitmodules changes   git add  gitmodules   3   Delete the relevant section from  git config  You can use below command   git submodule deinit -f  submodule name    4   Remove the gitlink  no trailing slash    git rm --cached path to submodule   5   Cleanup the  git modules   rm -rf  git modules path to submodule   6   Commit   git commit -m  Removed submodule  lt name gt     7   Delete the now untracked submodule files  rm -rf path to submodule

User · Answer

You must remove the entry in  gitmodules and  git config  and remove the directory of the module from the history   git rm --cached path to submodule   If you ll write on git s mailing list probably someone will do a shell script for you

User · Answer

To summarize  this is what you should do     Set path to submodule var  no trailing slash     path to submodule path to submodule Delete the relevant line from the  gitmodules file   git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section submodule  path to submodule Delete the relevant section from  git config  git config -f  git config --remove-section submodule  path to submodule Unstage and remove  path to submodule only from the index  to prevent losing information    git rm --cached  path to submodule Track changes made to  gitmodules  git add  gitmodules Commit the superproject  git commit -m  Remove submodule submodule name  Delete the now untracked submodule files  rm -rf  path to submodule  rm -rf  git modules  path to submodule

User · Answer

If you have just added the submodule  and for example  you simply added the wrong submodule or you added it to the wrong place  simply do git stash then delete the folder  This is assuming that adding the submodule is the only thing you did in the recent repo

User · Answer

After experimenting with all the different answers on this site  I ended up with this solution      bin sh path   1  if     -f   path  git     then   echo   path is no valid git submodule    exit 1 fi git submodule deinit -f  path  amp  amp  git rm --cached  path  amp  amp  rm -rf  git modules  path  amp  amp  rm -rf  path  amp  amp  git reset HEAD  gitmodules  amp  amp  git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section submodule  path   This restores the exact same state as before you added the submodule  You can right away add the submodule again  which was not possible with most of the answers here   git submodule add  giturl test aboveScript test   This leaves you with a clean checkout with no changes to commit   This was tested with     git --version git version 1 9 3  Apple Git-50

User · Answer

You can use an alias to automate the solutions provided by others    alias    rms     f    git rm --cached    1   rm -r    1   git config -f  gitmodules --remove-section   submodule  1   git config -f  git config --remove-section   submodule  1   git add  gitmodules     f    Put that in your git config  and then you can do  git rms path to submodule

[git] How do I remove a submodule?

Examples related to git

Examples related to git-submodules