Remove a file from a Git repository without deleting it from the local filesystem

Question

My initial commit contained some log files  I ve added  log to my  gitignore  and now I want to remove the log files from my repository   git rm mylogfile log   will remove a file from the repository  but will also remove it from the local file system   How can I remove this file from the repo without deleting my local copy of the file

User · Answer

Ignore the files  remove the files from git  update git  for the removal   Note   this does not deal with history for sensitive information  This process definitely takes some undertanding of what is going on with git   Over time  having gained that  I ve learned to do processes such as  1  Ignore the files  Add or update the project  gitignore to ignore them - in many cases such as yours  the parent directory  e g  log  will be the regex to use  commit and push that  gitignore file change  not sure if push needed mind you  no harm if done    2  Remove the files from git  only    Now remove the files from git  only  with git remove --cached some dir  Check that they still remain locally  they should     3  Add and commit that change  essentially this is a change to  quot add quot  deleting stuff  despite the otherwise confusing  quot add quot  command    git add   git commit -m quot removal quot

User · Answer

You can also remove files from the repository based on your  gitignore without deleting them from the local file system    git rm --cached  git ls-files -i -X  gitignore    Or  alternatively  on Windows Powershell   git rm --cached   git ls-files -i -X  gitignore

User · Answer

To remove an entire folder from the repo  like Resharper files   do this   git rm -r --cached folderName   I had committed some resharper files  and did not want those to persist for other project users

User · Answer

As per my Answer here  https   stackoverflow com questions 6313126 how-to-remove-a-directory-in-my-github-repository To remove folder directory or file only from git repository and not from the local try 3 simple steps   Steps to remove directory git rm -r --cached File-or-FolderName git commit -m  quot Removed folder from repository quot  git push origin master   Steps to ignore that folder in next commits  To ignore that folder from next commits make one file in root named  gitignore and put that folders name into it  You can put as many as you want   gitignore file will be look like this  FolderName

User · Answer

Above answers didn t work for me  I used filter-branch to remove all committed files   Remove a file  from a git repository with   git filter-branch --tree-filter  rm  file    Remove a folder from a git repository with   git filter-branch --tree-filter  rm -rf directory    This removes the directory or file from all the commits   You can specify a commit by using   git filter-branch --tree-filter  rm -rf directory  HEAD   Or an range   git filter-branch --tree-filter  rm -rf vendor gems  t49dse  HEAD   To push everything to remote  you can do   git push origin master --force

User · Answer

From the man file      When --cached is given  the staged content has to match either the tip of the branch or the file on disk  allowing the file to be removed from just the index    So  for a single file   git rm --cached mylogfile log   and for a single directory   git rm --cached -r mydirectory

User · Answer

If you want to just untrack a file and not delete from local and remote repo then use this command  git update-index --assume-unchanged  file name with path

User · Answer

Git lets you ignore those files by assuming they are unchanged  This   is done by running the git update-index --assume-unchanged   path to file txt command  Once marking a file as such  git will   completely ignore any changes on that file  they will not show up when   running git status or git diff  nor will they ever be committed     From https   help github com articles ignoring-files   Hence  not deleting it  but ignoring changes to it forever  I think this only works locally  so co-workers can still see changes to it unless they run the same command as above   Still need to verify this though    Note  This isn t answering the question directly  but is based on follow up questions in the comments of the other answers

User · Answer

Also  if you have commited sensitive data  e g  a file containing passwords   you should completely delete it from the history of the repository   Here s a guide explaining how to do that  http   help github com remove-sensitive-data

User · Answer

This depends on what you mean by  remove  from git     You can unstage a file using git rm --cached see for more details  When you unstage something  it means that it is no longer tracked  but this does not remove the file from previous commits  If you want to do more than unstage the file  for example to remove sensitive data from all previous commits you will want to look into filtering the branch using tools like the BFG Repo-Cleaner

User · Answer

A more generic solution   Edit  gitignore file  echo mylogfile log  gt  gt   gitignore  Remove all items from index  git rm -r -f --cached    Rebuild index  git add    Make new commit git commit -m  quot Removed mylogfile log quot

[git] Remove a file from a Git repository without deleting it from the local filesystem

Ignore the files, remove the files from git, update git (for the removal).

1) Ignore the files

2) Remove the files from git (only).

3) Add and commit that change (essentially this is a change to "add" deleting stuff, despite the otherwise confusing "add" command!)

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