How to find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository

Question

Say I m in a Git repository  I delete a file and commit that change  I continue working and make some more commits  Then  I find I need to restore that file   I know I can checkout a file using git checkout HEAD  foo bar  but I don t really know when that file was deleted    What would be the quickest way to find the commit that deleted a given filename  What would be the easiest way to get that file back into my working copy    I m hoping I don t have to manually browse my logs  checkout the entire project for a given SHA and then manually copy that file into my original project checkout

User · Answer

For the best way to do that  try it     First  find the commit id of the commit that deleted your file  It will give you a summary of commits which deleted files      git log --diff-filter D --summary      git checkout 84sdhfddbdddf 1    Note  84sdhfddbddd is your commit id  Through this you can easily recover all deleted files

User · Answer

I had the same question  Without knowing it  I had created a dangling commit   List dangling commits  git fsck --lost-found  Inspect each dangling commit  git reset --hard  lt commit id gt   My files reappeared when I moved to the dangling commit     git status for the reason      HEAD detached from  lt commit id where it detached gt

User · Answer

Actually  this question is directly about Git  but somebody like me works with GUI tools like the WebStorm VCS other than knowing about Git CLI commands   I right click on the path that contains the deleted file  and then go to Git and then click on Show History     The VCS tools show all revisions train and I can see all commits and changes of each of them     Then I select the commits that my friend delete the PostAd js file  now see below     And now  I can see my desire deleted file  I just double-click on the filename and it recovers     I know my answer is not Git commands  but it is fast  reliable and easy for beginner and professional developers  WebStorm VCS tools are awesome and perfect for working with Git and it doesn t need any other plugin or tools

User · Answer

I ve got this solution    Get the id of the commit where the file was deleted using one of the ways below    git log --grep  word   git log -Sword git log   grep --context 5  word  git log --stat   grep --context 5  word    recommended if you hardly remember anything  You should get something like        commit bfe68bd117e1091c96d2976c99b3bcc8310bebe7 Author  Alexander   Orlov  Date    Thu May 12 23 44 27 2011    0200  replaced deprecated GWT class - gwtI18nKeySync sh  an outdated     replaced by a Maven goal  I18n generation script       commit 3ea4e3af253ac6fd1691ff6bb89c964f54802302 Author  Alexander   Orlov  Date    Thu May 12 22 10 22 2011    0200   3  Now using the commit id bfe68bd117e1091c96d2976c99b3bcc8310bebe7 do   git checkout bfe68bd117e1091c96d2976c99b3bcc8310bebe7 1 yourDeletedFile java   As the commit id references the commit where the file was already deleted you need to reference the commit just before bfe68b which you can do by appending  1  This means  give me the commit just before bfe68b

User · Answer

To restore all those deleted files in a folder  enter the following command   git ls-files -d   xargs git checkout --

User · Answer

Find the last commit that affected the given path  As the file isn t in the HEAD commit  this commit must have deleted it   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  lt file path gt    Then checkout the version at the commit before  using the caret     symbol   git checkout  lt deleting commit gt   --  lt file path gt    Or in one command  if  file is the file in question   git checkout   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --   file    --   file      If you are using zsh and have the EXTENDED GLOB option enabled  the caret symbol won t work  You can use  1 instead   git checkout   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --   file   1 --   file

User · Answer

Use git log --diff-filter D --summary to get all the commits which have deleted files and the files deleted  Use git checkout  commit 1 path to file ext to restore the deleted file    Where  commit is the value of the commit you ve found at step 1  e g  e4cf499627

User · Answer

In order to restore all deleted file with Git  you can also do    git checkout   git ls-files --deleted    Where git ls-files --deleted lists all deleted files and git checkout   git command  restores the list of files in a parameter

User · Answer

In many cases  it can be useful to use coreutils  grep  sed  etc   in conjunction with Git  I already know these tools quite well  but Git less so  If I wanted to do a search for a deleted file  I would do the following   git log --raw   grep -B 30   D t  deleted file c    When I find the revision commit   git checkout  lt rev gt   -- path to refound deleted file c   Just like others have stated before me   The file will now be restored to the state it had before removal  Remember to re-commit it to the working tree if you want to keep it around

User · Answer

If you know the filename  this is an easy way with basic commands   List all the commits for that file   git log -- path to file   The last commit  topmost  is the one that deleted the file  So you need to restore the second to last commit   git checkout  second to last commit  -- path to file

User · Answer

My new favorite alias  based on bonyiii s answer  upvoted   and my own answer about  Pass an argument to a Git alias command    git config alias restore   f     git checkout   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  1  1 --   git diff --name-status   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  1  1   grep   D    cut -f 2      f    I have lost a file  deleted by mistake a few commits ago  Quick   git restore my deleted file   Crisis averted   Warning  with Git 2 23  Q3 2019  comes the experimental command named git restore     So rename this alias  as shown below      Robert Dailey proposes in the comments the following alias   restore-file    git checkout   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --   1    --   1    And jegan adds in the comments      For setting the alias from the command line  I used this command     git config --global alias restore    git checkout    git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --     1     --     1

User · Answer

git undelete path to file ext   Put this in your  bash profile  or other relevant file that loads when you open a command shell    git config --global alias undelete   sh -c  git checkout   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  1   --  1  -   Then use   git undelete path to file ext    This alias first checks to find the last commit where this file existed  and then does a Git checkout of that file path from that last commit where this file existed  Source

User · Answer

I came to this question looking to restore a file I just deleted but I hadn t yet committed the change   Just in case you find yourself in this situation  all you need to do is the following   git checkout HEAD -- path to file ext

User · Answer

Find the commit that deleted your file   git log --diff-filter D --oneline -- path to file   cut -f -d       Sample output   4711174   As of Git 2 23 there is actually a restore command  It is still experimental but in order to restore something you removed in a commit  4711174 in this case  you can then type   git restore --source 4711174  path to file   Note the   after the commit id as we want to restore something from the commit before the one that deleted the file   The --source argument tells the restore command where to look for the file s  to restore and it can be any commit and even the index   See  git-restore doc for git 2 23 0

User · Answer

I also have this problem using the below code to retrieve a previous file to a local directory   git checkout  lt file path with name gt    The below example is working for me   git checkout resources views usaSchools blade php

User · Answer

In our case we accidentally deleted files in a commit and some commits later we realized our mistake and wanted to get back all the files that were deleted  but not those that were modified   Based on Charles Bailey s excellent answer  here is my one-liner   git co   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  lt file path gt   1 --   git diff --name-status   git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  lt file path gt   1 head   grep   D    cut -f 2

User · Answer

You could always git revert your commit which deleted the file   This assumes that the deletion was the only change in the commit     gt  git log commit 2994bda49cd97ce49099953fc3f76f7d3c35d1d3 Author  Dave  lt dave domain com gt  Date    Thu May 9 11 11 06 2019 -0700      deleted readme md   And if you ve continued work  and realized later that you didn t want to commit that deletion commit  you could revert it using    gt  git revert 2994bd   Now git log shows    gt  git log Author  Dave  lt dave domain com gt  Date    Thu May 9 11 17 41 2019 -0700      Revert  deleted readme       This reverts commit 2994bda49cd97ce49099953fc3f76f7d3c35d1d3    And readme md has been restored into the repository

User · Answer

If you only made changes and deleted a file  but not commit it  and now you broke up with your changes  git checkout --     but your deleted files did not return  you simply do the following command   git checkout  lt file path gt    And presto  your file is back

User · Answer

git log --diff-filter D --summary    grep  delete    sort

User · Answer

user bsd   work git  rm slides tex user bsd   work git  git pull  Already up-to-date  user bsd   work git  ls slides tex ls  slides tex  No such file or directory   Restore the deleted file   user bsd   work git  git checkout D        slides tex swp D       slides tex user bsd   work git  git checkout slides tex  user bsd   work git  ls slides tex slides tex

User · Answer

git checkout  path to deleted file

User · Answer

If you know the commit that deleted the file s   run this command where  lt SHA1 deletion gt  is the commit that deleted the file   git diff --diff-filter D --name-only  lt SHA1 deletion gt  1  lt SHA1 deletion gt    xargs git checkout  lt SHA1 deletion gt  1 --   The part before the pipe lists all the files that were deleted in the  commit  they are all checkout from the previous commit to restore them

User · Answer

If you   re insane  use git-bisect  Here s what to do   git bisect start git bisect bad git bisect good  lt some commit where you know the file existed gt    Now it s time to run the automated test  The shell command    -e foo bar    will return 0 if foo bar exists  and 1 otherwise  The  run  command of git-bisect will use binary search to automatically find the first commit where the test fails  It starts halfway through the range given  from good to bad  and cuts it in half based on the result of the specified test   git bisect run    -e foo bar      Now you re at the commit which deleted it  From here  you can jump back to the future and use git-revert to undo the change   git bisect reset git revert  lt the offending commit gt    or you could go back one commit and manually inspect the damage   git checkout HEAD  cp foo bar  tmp git bisect reset cp  tmp foo bar

User · Answer

To restore a deleted and commited file   git reset HEAD some path git checkout -- some path   It was tested on Git version 1 7 5 4

User · Answer

If the deletion has not been committed  the command below will restore the deleted file in the working tree     git checkout --  lt file gt    You can get a list of all the deleted files in the working tree using the command below     git ls-files --deleted   If the deletion has been committed  find the commit where it happened  then recover the file from this commit     git rev-list -n 1 HEAD --  lt file gt    git checkout  lt commit gt   --  lt file gt    In case you are looking for the path of the file to recover  the following command will display a summary of all deleted files     git log --diff-filter D --summary

User · Answer

Simple and precise-  First of all  get a latest stable commit in which you have that file by -  git log    Say you find  commitid 1234567     then   git checkout  lt  commitid gt   fileName   This will restore the file version which was in that commit

User · Answer

I had to restore a bunch of deleted files from a specific commit  and I managed it with two commands   git show  lt rev gt  --diff-filter D --summary --name-only --no-commit-id   xargs git checkout  lt rev gt   --  git show  lt rev gt  --diff-filter D --summary --name-only --no-commit-id   xargs git reset HEAD     Note the trailing space on the end of each command    The files had been added to the  gitignore file and then cleared with git rm  I needed to restore the files  but then unstage them  I had hundreds of files to restore  and typing things manually for each file as in the other examples was going to be far too slow

[git] How to find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository

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