How can I clear my working directory in Git?
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git
To switch to another branch, discarding all uncommitted changes (e.g. resulting from Git's strange handling of line endings):
git checkout -f <branchname>
I had a working copy with hundreds of changed files (but empty git diff --ignore-space-at-eol) which I couldn't get rid off with any of the commands I read here, and git checkout <branchname> won't work, either - unless given the -f (or --force) option.
You could create a commit which contains an empty working copy.
This is a generally safe, non-destructive approach because it does not involve the use of any brute-force reset mechanisms. First you hide all managed content with git checkout empty, then you are free to manually review and remove whatever unmanaged content remains.
## create a stand-alone, tagged, empty commit
true | git mktree | xargs git commit-tree | xargs git tag empty
## clear the working copy
git checkout empty
Your working copy should now be clear of any managed content. All that remains are unmanaged files and the .git folder itself.
To re-populate your working copy...
git checkout master ## or whatever branch you will be using
If you're a forward thinking individual, you might start your repository off on the right foot by basing everything on an initial empty commit...
git init
git commit --allow-empty --allow-empty-message -m ""
git tag empty
...
There are various uses for a tagged empty worktree. My favorite at the moment is to depopulate the root under a set of git worktree subfolders.
All the answers so far retain local commits. If you're really serious, you can discard all local commits and all local edits by doing:
git reset --hard origin/branchname
For example:
git reset --hard origin/master
This makes your local repository exactly match the state of the origin (other than untracked files).
If you accidentally did this after just reading the command, and not what it does :), use git reflog to find your old commits.
To reset a specific file as git status suggests:
git checkout <filename>
To reset a folder
git checkout <foldername>/*
Use:
git clean -df
It's not well advertised, but git clean is really handy. Git Ready has a nice introduction to git clean.
Source: Stackoverflow.com