Make gitignore ignore everything except a few files

Question

I understand that a  gitignore file cloaks specified files from Git s version control  I have a project  LaTeX  that generates lots of extra files   auth   dvi   pdf  logs  etc  as it runs  but I don t want those to be tracked   I m aware that I could  maybe should  make it so all those files are put in an separate subfolder in the project  since I could then just ignore the folder   However  is there any feasible way to keep the output files in the root of the project tree and use  gitignore to ignore everything except the files I m tracking with Git  Something like    Ignore everything      But not these files    script pl template latex   etc

User · Answer

There are a bunch of similar questions about this, so I'll post what I wrote before:

The only way I got this to work on my machine was to do it this way:

# Ignore all directories, and all sub-directories, and it's contents:
*/*

#Now ignore all files in the current directory 
#(This fails to ignore files without a ".", for example 
#'file.txt' works, but 
#'file' doesn't):
*.*

#Only Include these specific directories and subdirectories and files if you wish:
!wordpress/somefile.jpg
!wordpress/
!wordpress/*/
!wordpress/*/wp-content/
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*/*/*
!wordpress/*/wp-content/themes/*/*/*/*/*

Notice how you have to explicitly allow content for each level you want to include. So if I have subdirectories 5 deep under themes, I still need to spell that out.

This is from @Yarin's comment here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/5250314/1696153

These were useful topics:

I also tried

*
*/*
**/**

and **/wp-content/themes/**

or /wp-content/themes/**/*

None of that worked for me, either. Lots of trail and error!

User · Answer

An optional prefix   which negates the pattern  any matching file excluded by   a previous pattern will become included again  If a negated pattern matches    this will override lower precedence patterns sources      Ignore everything      But not these files      gitignore  script pl  template latex   etc          even if they are in subdirectories        if the files to be tracked are in subdirectories    a b file1 txt    a b c

User · Answer

I know I am late for the party but here s my answer   As  Joakim said  to ignore a file   you can use something like below     Ignore everything      But not these files      gitignore  someFile txt   but if the file is with in nested directories  it s little bit hard to manually write the rules    For example  if we want to skip all files in a git project  but not a txt which is located in aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir  Then  our  gitignore will be something like this    Skip all files      But not  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir a txt   aDir  aDir    aDir anotherDir  aDir anotherDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir a txt   The above given  gitignore file will skip all dirs and files except  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir a txt  As you may have noted  it s hard to define those rules   To solve this hurdle  I ve created a simple console application named git-do-not-ignore which will generate the rules for you  I ve hosted the project in github with detailed instruction    Usage Example  java -jar git-do-not-ignore jar  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir a txt    Output   aDir  aDir    aDir anotherDir  aDir anotherDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir  aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir    aDir anotherDir someOtherDir aDir bDir cDir a txt   There s also a simple web version available here  Thank you

User · Answer

ignore these     except foo  foo

User · Answer

I got this working     Vendor  vendor braintree braintree php     vendor braintree braintree php lib

User · Answer

To exclude folder from  gitignore  the following can be done    app   app    app bower components   app bower components    app bower components highcharts    This will ignore all files subfolders inside bower components except for  highcharts

User · Answer

You can use git config status showUntrackedFiles no and all untracked files will be hidden from you  See man git-config for details

User · Answer

If you want to ignore the whole content of a directory except one file inside it  you could write a pair of rules for each directory in the file path  E g   gitignore to ignore the pippo folder except from pippo pluto paperino xml pippo    pippo pluto pippo pluto    pippo pluto paperino xml   Note that if you simply had written above  pippo    pippo pluto paperino xml  It wouldn t work because the intermediary pluto folder would not exist to Git  so paperino xml could not find a place in which to exist

User · Answer

Gist    Ignore everything      But not these files     script pl  template latex   And probably include     gitignore   Reference  From https   git-scm com docs gitignore      An optional prefix     which negates the pattern  any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again  It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded  Git doesn   t list excluded directories for performance reasons  so any patterns on contained files have no effect  no matter where they are defined  Put a backslash       in front of the first     for patterns that begin with a literal      for example     important  txt                 Example to exclude everything except a specific directory foo bar  note the    - without the slash  the wildcard would also exclude everything within foo bar      cat  gitignore   exclude everything except directory foo bar      foo  foo     foo bar

User · Answer

This is how I did it     Ignore everything      Whitelist anything that s a directory        Whitelist some files   gitignore    Whitelist this folder and everything inside of it  wordpress wp-content themes my-theme       Ignore this folder inside that folder wordpress wp-content themes my-theme node modules    Ignore this file recursively     DS Store   Use gig status -u to view individual files in untracked directories recursively - with git status you d only see folders  which could fool you into thinking that everything inside them was tracked

User · Answer

That s what have worked for me  I wanted to commit only one Cordova plugin to the repo       plugins    plugins cordova-plugin-app-customization

User · Answer

This is how I keep the structure of folders while ignoring everything else  You have to have a README md file in each directory  or  gitkeep    data     data README md    data input   data input     data input README md    data output   data output     data output README md

User · Answer

A little more specific    Example  Ignore everything in webroot cache - but keep webroot cache  htaccess    Notice the slash     after the cache folder   FAILS  webroot cache   webroot cache  htaccess   WORKS  webroot cache    webroot cache  htaccess

User · Answer

Had the similar issue as OP but none of top 10 upvoted answer actually worked  I finally found out the following Wrong syntax      bin script sh  Correct syntax      bin  bin script sh  Explanation from gitignore man page    An optional prefix  quot   quot  which negates the pattern  any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again  It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded  Git doesn   t list excluded directories for performance reasons  so any patterns on contained files have no effect  no matter where they are defined   Which means that  quot Wrong syntax quot  above is wrong because bin script sh cannot be reincluded as bin  is ignored  That s all  Extended example     tree      --  gitignore  -- bin      -- ignore txt      -- sub          -- folder              -- path                  -- other sh                  -- script sh    cat  gitignore     gitignore  bin  bin sub  bin sub folder  bin sub folder path  bin sub folder path script sh    git status --untracked-files --ignored On branch master  No commits yet  Untracked files     use  quot git add  lt file gt     quot  to include in what will be committed           gitignore         bin sub folder path script sh  Ignored files     use  quot git add -f  lt file gt     quot  to include in what will be committed          bin ignore txt         bin sub folder path other sh  nothing added to commit but untracked files present  use  quot git add quot  to track

User · Answer

I seem to have found something that worked for me which no one else mentioned     Ignore everything      But not these files      gitignore  script pl  template latex   etc       And if you want to include a sub-directory and all sub-directory and files under it  but not all sub-directories  subdir   subdir        Basically  it seems to negate a sub-directory from being ignored  you have to have two entries  one for the sub-directory itself  subdir  and then another one which expands to all files and folders under it  subdir

User · Answer

I also had some issues with the negation of single files  I was able to commit them  but my IDE  IntelliJ  always complained about ignored files  which are tracked   git ls-files -i --exclude-from  gitignore   Displayed the two files  which I ve excluded this way   public   public typo3conf LocalConfiguration php  public typo3conf PackageStates php   In the end  this worked for me   public    public typo3conf  public typo3conf    public typo3conf LocalConfiguration php  public typo3conf PackageStates php   The key was the negation of the folder typo3conf  first    Also  it seems that the order of the statements doesn t matter  Instead  you need to explicitly negate all subfolders  before you can negate single files in it    The folder  public typo3conf  and the folder contents public typo3conf   are two different things for  gitignore    Great thread  This issue bothered me for a while

User · Answer

You want to use    instead of   or    in most cases  Using   is valid  but it works recursively   It won t look into directories from then on out   People recommend using     to whitelist directories again  but it s actually better to blacklist the highest level folder with       Blacklist files folders in same directory as the  gitignore file       Whitelist some files   gitignore  README md    Ignore all files named  DS Store or ending with  log     DS Store    log    Whitelist folder a b1  and folder a b2    trailing     is optional for folders  may match file though        is NOT optional when followed by a    folder  folder    folder a  folder a    folder a b1   folder a b2   folder a file txt    Adding to the above  this also works      folder a deeply  folder a deeply     folder a deeply nested  folder a deeply nested     folder a deeply nested subfolder   The above code would ignore all files except for  gitignore  README md  folder a file txt  folder a b1  and folder a b2  and everything contained in those last two folders   And  DS Store and   log files would be ignored in those folders    Obviously I could do e g    folder or    gitignore too   More info  http   git-scm com docs gitignore

User · Answer

Nothing worked for me so far because I was trying to add one jar from lib   This did not worked   build    build libs    build libs   build libs myjarfile jar    This worked   build    build libs

User · Answer

I tried all answers as given here above  but none worked for me  After reading the gitignore documentation  here  i found out that if you exclude a folder first that the filenames in the subfolder are not being indexed  So if you use the exclamation mark afterwards to include a file  it is not found in the index and thus not being included in your git client   That was the way to finding the solution  I started with adding exceptions for all subfolders in my folder tree to get it working  which is a hell of a job  Afterwards i was able to compact the detailed configuration to the configuration below  which is a bit contrary to the documentation    Working  gitignore     Ignore the  Pro  folder  except for the  3rdparty  subfolder   Pro    Pro 3rdparty     Ignore the  3rdparty  folder  except for the  domain  subfolder  Pro 3rdparty    Pro 3rdparty domain     Ignore the  domain  folder  except for the  modulename  subfolder Pro 3rdparty domain    Pro 3rdparty domain modulename    As result i see in my git client that only the two files inside the Pro 3rdparty domain modulename  folder are being staged for the next commit  and that was exactly what i was looking for   And if you need to whitelist several subfolders of the same folder then group the exclamation mark lines below the exclude statement like this     Ignore the  Pro  folder  except for the  3rdparty  subfolder   Pro    Pro 3rdparty     Ignore the  3rdparty  folder  except for the  domain   amp   hosting  subfolders  Pro 3rdparty    Pro 3rdparty domain   Pro 3rdparty hosting     Ignore the  domain  folder  except for the  modulename  subfolder Pro 3rdparty domain    Pro 3rdparty domain modulename     Ignore the  hosting  folder  except for the  modulename  subfolder Pro 3rdparty hosting    Pro 3rdparty hosting modulename    Else it wont work as expected

User · Answer

The simplest way that I go about this is to force add a file  It will be accounted for in git even if it is buried or nested inside a git-ignored subdirectory tree  For example  x64 folder is excluded in  gitignore  x64   But you want to include the file myFile py located in x64 Release  directory  Then you have to  git add -f x64 Release myFile py  You can do this for multiple files of files that match a pattern e g  git add -f x64 Release myFile  py  and so on

User · Answer

Simple solution if you need to ignore everything except few files and few root folders        gitignore  showMe txt  my visible dir   The magic is in     as described above  it ignores everything in the  root  folder BUT NOT recursively

User · Answer

I had a problem with subfolder   Does not work    custom     custom config foo yml dist   Works    custom config     custom config foo yml dist

User · Answer

I have Jquery and Angular from bower  Bower installed them in    public html bower components jquery dist bunch-of-jquery-files  public html bower components jquery src bunch-of-jquery-source-files  public html bower components angular angular-files   The minimized jquery is inside the dist directory and angular is inside angular directory  I only needed minimized files to be commited to github  Some tampering with  gitignore and this is what I managed to conjure      public html bower components jquery    public html bower components jquery dist  public html bower components jquery dist    public html bower components jquery dist jquery min js  public html bower components angular    public html bower components angular angular min js   Hope someone could find this useful

User · Answer

To ignore some files in a directory  you have to do this in the correct order   For example  ignore everything in folder  application  except index php and folder  config  pay attention to the order    You must negate want you want first   FAILS  application     application config     application index php  WORKS   application config     application index php  application

[git] Make .gitignore ignore everything except a few files

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