[git] Git mergetool generates unwanted .orig files

When I do a merge conflict resolution with Kdiff3 (and other merge tool I tried) I noticed that on resolution a *.orig file is created. Is there a way for it to not create that extra file?

Windows:

1. in File Win/Users/HOME/.gitconfig set mergetool.keepTemporaries=false
2. in File git/libexec/git-core/git-mergetool, in the function cleanup_temp_files() add rm -rf -- "$MERGED.orig" within the else block.

I simply use the command

git clean -n *.orig

check to make sure only file I want remove are listed then

git clean -f *.orig

To be clear, the correct git command is:

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

Both of the other answers have typos in the command line that will cause it to fail or not work correctly.

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

This should work for Beyond Compare (as mergetool) too

Or just add

*.orig

to your global gitignore

Besides the correct answers offered as long term solutions, you can use git to remove all unnecessary files once for you with the git clean -f command but use git clean --dry-run first to ensure nothing unintended would happen.

This has the benefit of using tested built in functionality of Git over scripts specific to your OS/shell to remove the files.

You have to be a little careful with using kdiff3 as while git mergetool can be configured to save a .orig file during merging, the default behaviour for kdiff3 is to also save a .orig backup file independently of git mergetool.

You have to make sure that mergetool backup is off:

git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

and also that kdiff3's settings are set to not create a backup:

Configure/Options => Directory Merge => Backup Files (*.orig)

I use this to clean up all files ending in ".orig":

function git-clean-orig {
    git status -su | grep -e"\.orig$" | cut -f2 -d" " | xargs rm -r
}

If you are a scaredy-cat :) you could leave the last part off just to list them (or leave off the -r if you want to approve each delete):

function git-show-orig {
    git status -su | grep -e"\.orig$" | cut -f2 -d" "
}

The option to save the .orig file can be disabled by configuring KDiff3