How do I undo git add before commit

Question

I mistakenly added files to Git using the command   git add myfile txt   I have not yet run git commit  Is there a way to undo this  so these files won t be included in the commit

User · Answer

Git has commands for every action imaginable, but it needs extensive knowledge to get things right and because of that it is counter-intuitive at best...

What you did before:

Changed a file and used git add ., or git add <file>.

What you want:

Remove the file from the index, but keep it versioned and left with uncommitted changes in working copy:
```
 git reset HEAD <file>
```
Reset the file to the last state from HEAD, undoing changes and removing them from the index:
```
 # Think `svn revert <file>` IIRC.
 git reset HEAD <file>
 git checkout <file>

 # If you have a `<branch>` named like `<file>`, use:
 git checkout -- <file>
```
This is needed since git reset --hard HEAD won't work with single files.
Remove <file> from index and versioning, keeping the un-versioned file with changes in working copy:
```
 git rm --cached <file>
```
Remove <file> from working copy and versioning completely:
```
 git rm <file>
```

User · Answer

git rm --cached   -r   will  un-add  everything you ve added from your current directory recursively

User · Answer

This command will unstash your changes   git reset HEAD filename txt   You can also use   git add -p    to add parts of files

User · Answer

You can undo git add before commit with git reset  lt file gt   which will remove it from the current index  the  quot about to be committed quot  list  without changing anything else  You can use git reset  without any file name to unstage all due changes  This can come in handy when there are too many files to be listed one by one in a reasonable amount of time  In old versions of Git  the above commands are equivalent to git reset HEAD  lt file gt  and git reset HEAD respectively  and will fail if HEAD is undefined  because you haven t yet made any commits in your repository  or ambiguous  because you created a branch called HEAD  which is a stupid thing that you shouldn t do   This was changed in Git 1 8 2  though  so in modern versions of Git you can use the commands above even prior to making your first commit    quot git reset quot   without options or parameters  used to error out when you do not have any commits in your history  but it now gives you an empty index  to match non-existent commit you are not even on    Documentation  git reset

User · Answer

Suppose I create a new file  newFile txt     Suppose I add the file accidentally  git add newFile txt     Now I want to undo this add  before commit  git reset newFile txt

User · Answer

To remove new files from the staging area  and only in case of a new file   as suggested above   git rm --cached FILE   Use rm --cached only for new files accidentally added

User · Answer

Just type git reset it will revert back and it is like you never typed git add   since your last commit  Make sure you have committed before

User · Answer

Run  git gui   and remove all the files manually or by selecting all of them and clicking on the unstage from commit button

User · Answer

You can unstage undo using the git command or GUI git  Single file git reset File txt   Multiple files git reset File1 txt File2 txt File3 txt  Example - Suppose you have added Home js  ListItem js  Update js by mistake  and want to undo reset   gt  git reset src components home Home js src components listItem ListItem js src components update Update js   Same Example using git GUI git gui  opens a window   gt  Uncheck your files from Staged changes Will Commit

User · Answer

Use git reset HEAD to unstage everything you staged

User · Answer

Use git add -i to remove just-added files from your upcoming commit   Example   Adding the file you didn t want     git add foo   git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage            new file    foo     Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed             Going into interactive add to undo your add  the commands typed at git here are  r   revert    1   first entry in the list revert shows    return  to drop out of revert mode  and  q   quit      git add -i            staged     unstaged path   1          1 -0      nothing foo      Commands       1   s tatus     2   u pdate     3   r evert     4   a dd untracked   5   p atch      6   d iff       7   q uit       8   h elp What now gt  r            staged     unstaged path   1          1 -0      nothing  f oo Revert gt  gt  1            staged     unstaged path   1          1 -0      nothing  f oo Revert gt  gt   note  foo is untracked now  reverted one path      Commands       1   s tatus     2   u pdate     3   r evert     4   a dd untracked   5   p atch      6   d iff       7   q uit       8   h elp What now gt  q Bye      That s it   Here s your proof  showing that  foo  is back on the untracked list     git status   On branch master   Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed                  foo nothing added to commit but untracked files present  use  git add  to track

User · Answer

2019 update As pointed out by others in related questions  see here  here  here  here  here  here  and here   you can now unstage a single file with  git restore --staged  lt file gt   and unstage all files  from the root of the repo  with  git restore --staged    Notes git restore was introduced in July 2019 and released in version 2 23  With the --staged flag  it restores the content of the index  what is asked here   When running git status with staged uncommitted file s   this is now what Git suggests to use to unstage file s   instead of git reset HEAD  lt file gt  as it used to prior to v2 23

User · Answer

Maybe Git has evolved since you posted your question     gt  git --version git version 1 6 2 1   Now  you can try   git reset HEAD     This should be what you are looking for

User · Answer

git reset filename txt        Will remove a file named filename txt from the current index  the  about to be committed  area  without changing anything else

User · Answer

git rm --cached   -r   will  un-add  everything you ve added from your current directory recursively

User · Answer

Here s a way to avoid this vexing problem when you start a new project    Create the main directory for your new project  Run git init  Now create a  gitignore file  even if it s empty   Commit your  gitignore file    Git makes it really hard to do git reset if you don t have any commits   If you create a tiny initial commit just for the sake of having one  after that you can git add -A and git reset as many times as you want in order to get everything right   Another advantage of this method is that if you run into line-ending troubles later and need to refresh all your files  it s easy    Check out that initial commit   This will remove all your files  Then check out your most recent commit again   This will retrieve fresh copies of your files  using your current line-ending settings

User · Answer

The question is not clearly posed  The reason is that git add has two meanings    adding a new file to the staging area  then undo with git rm --cached file  adding a modified file to the staging area  then undo with git reset HEAD file    If in doubt  use  git reset HEAD file   Because it does the expected thing in both cases   Warning  if you do git rm --cached file on a file that was modified  a file that existed before in the repository   then the file will be removed on git commit  It will still exist in your file system  but if anybody else pulls your commit  the file will be deleted from their work tree   git status will tell you if the file was a new file or modified   On branch master Changes to be committed     use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage       new file    my new file txt     modified    my modified file txt

User · Answer

As per many of the other answers  you can use git reset BUT  I found this great little post that actually adds the Git command  well  an alias  for git unadd  see git unadd for details or   Simply  git config --global alias unadd  quot reset HEAD quot   Now you can git unadd foo txt bar txt  Alternatively   directly  git reset HEAD foo txt bar txt

User · Answer

Undo a file which has already been added is quite easy using Git  For resetting myfile txt  which have already been added  use   git reset HEAD myfile txt   Explanation   After you staged unwanted file s   to undo  you can do git reset  Head is head of your file in the local and the last parameter is the name of your file   I have created the steps in the image below in more details for you  including all steps which may happen in these cases

User · Answer

If you type   git status   Git will tell you what is staged  etc   including instructions on how to unstage   use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage   I find Git does a pretty good job of nudging me to do the right thing in situations like this   Note  Recent Git versions  1 8 4 x  have changed this message    use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage

User · Answer

For a specific file         git reset my file txt   git checkout my file txt      For all added files         git reset     git checkout        Note  checkout changes the code in the files and moves to the last updated  committed  state  reset doesn t change the codes  it just resets the header

User · Answer

As per many of the other answers  you can use git reset BUT  I found this great little post that actually adds the Git command  well  an alias  for git unadd  see git unadd for details or   Simply  git config --global alias unadd  quot reset HEAD quot   Now you can git unadd foo txt bar txt  Alternatively   directly  git reset HEAD foo txt bar txt

User · Answer

If you re on your initial commit and you can t use git reset  just declare  Git bankruptcy  and delete the  git folder and start over

User · Answer

git remove or git rm can be used for this  with the --cached flag  Try   git help rm

User · Answer

The git reset command helps you to modify either the staging area or the staging area and working tree  Git s ability to craft commits exactly like you want means that you sometimes need to undo changes to the changes you staged with git add   You can do that by calling git reset HEAD  lt file to change gt   You have two options to get rid of changes completely  git checkout HEAD  lt file s  or path s  gt  is a quick way to undo changes to your staging area and working tree   Be careful with this command  however  because it removes all changes to your working tree  Git doesn t know about those changes since they ve never been committed  There s no way to get those changes back once you run this command   Another command at your disposal is git reset --hard  It is equally destructive to your working tree - any uncommitted changes or staged changes are lost after running it  Running git reset -hard HEAD does the same thing as git checkout HEAD  It just does not require a file or path to work   You can use --soft with git reset  It resets the repository to the commit you specify and stages all of those changes  Any changes you have already staged are not affected  nor are the changes in your working tree   Finally  you can use --mixed to reset the working tree without staging any changes  This also unstages any changes that are staged

User · Answer

git reset filename txt   Will remove a file named filename txt from the current index  the  about to be committed  area  without changing anything else

User · Answer

Undo a file which has already been added is quite easy using Git  For resetting myfile txt  which have already been added  use   git reset HEAD myfile txt   Explanation   After you staged unwanted file s   to undo  you can do git reset  Head is head of your file in the local and the last parameter is the name of your file   I have created the steps in the image below in more details for you  including all steps which may happen in these cases

User · Answer

The question is not clearly posed  The reason is that git add has two meanings    adding a new file to the staging area  then undo with git rm --cached file  adding a modified file to the staging area  then undo with git reset HEAD file    If in doubt  use  git reset HEAD file   Because it does the expected thing in both cases   Warning  if you do git rm --cached file on a file that was modified  a file that existed before in the repository   then the file will be removed on git commit  It will still exist in your file system  but if anybody else pulls your commit  the file will be deleted from their work tree   git status will tell you if the file was a new file or modified   On branch master Changes to be committed     use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage       new file    my new file txt     modified    my modified file txt

User · Answer

There is also interactive mode   git add -i   Choose option 3 to un add files  In my case I often want to add more than one file  and with interactive mode you can use numbers like this to add files  This will take all but 4  1  2  3  and 5  To choose a sequence  just type 1-5 to take all from 1 to 5   Git staging files

User · Answer

This command will unstash your changes   git reset HEAD filename txt   You can also use   git add -p    to add parts of files

User · Answer

2019 update As pointed out by others in related questions  see here  here  here  here  here  here  and here   you can now unstage a single file with  git restore --staged  lt file gt   and unstage all files  from the root of the repo  with  git restore --staged    Notes git restore was introduced in July 2019 and released in version 2 23  With the --staged flag  it restores the content of the index  what is asked here   When running git status with staged uncommitted file s   this is now what Git suggests to use to unstage file s   instead of git reset HEAD  lt file gt  as it used to prior to v2 23

User · Answer

To clarify  git add moves changes from the current working directory to the staging area  index    This process is called staging  So the most natural command to stage the changes  changed files  is the obvious one   git stage   git add is just an easier-to-type alias for git stage  Pity there is no git unstage nor git unadd commands  The relevant one is harder to guess or remember  but it is pretty obvious   git reset HEAD --   We can easily create an alias for this   git config --global alias unadd  reset HEAD --  git config --global alias unstage  reset HEAD --    And finally  we have new commands   git add file1 git stage file2 git unadd file2 git unstage file1   Personally I use even shorter aliases   git a   For staging git u   For unstaging

User · Answer

In Sourcetree you can do this easily via the GUI  You can check which command Sourcetree uses to unstage a file   I created a new file and added it to Git  Then I unstaged it using the Sourcetree GUI  This is the result      Unstaging files  08 12 15 10 43    git -c diff mnemonicprefix false -c core quotepath false -c credential helper sourcetree reset -q -- path to file filename java   Sourcetree uses reset to unstage new files

User · Answer

To undo git add  use   git reset filename

User · Answer

You can undo git add before commit with git reset  lt file gt   which will remove it from the current index  the  quot about to be committed quot  list  without changing anything else  You can use git reset  without any file name to unstage all due changes  This can come in handy when there are too many files to be listed one by one in a reasonable amount of time  In old versions of Git  the above commands are equivalent to git reset HEAD  lt file gt  and git reset HEAD respectively  and will fail if HEAD is undefined  because you haven t yet made any commits in your repository  or ambiguous  because you created a branch called HEAD  which is a stupid thing that you shouldn t do   This was changed in Git 1 8 2  though  so in modern versions of Git you can use the commands above even prior to making your first commit    quot git reset quot   without options or parameters  used to error out when you do not have any commits in your history  but it now gives you an empty index  to match non-existent commit you are not even on    Documentation  git reset

User · Answer

You can unstage undo using the git command or GUI git  Single file git reset File txt   Multiple files git reset File1 txt File2 txt File3 txt  Example - Suppose you have added Home js  ListItem js  Update js by mistake  and want to undo reset   gt  git reset src components home Home js src components listItem ListItem js src components update Update js   Same Example using git GUI git gui  opens a window   gt  Uncheck your files from Staged changes Will Commit

User · Answer

You can undo git add before commit with git reset  lt file gt   which will remove it from the current index  the  quot about to be committed quot  list  without changing anything else  You can use git reset  without any file name to unstage all due changes  This can come in handy when there are too many files to be listed one by one in a reasonable amount of time  In old versions of Git  the above commands are equivalent to git reset HEAD  lt file gt  and git reset HEAD respectively  and will fail if HEAD is undefined  because you haven t yet made any commits in your repository  or ambiguous  because you created a branch called HEAD  which is a stupid thing that you shouldn t do   This was changed in Git 1 8 2  though  so in modern versions of Git you can use the commands above even prior to making your first commit    quot git reset quot   without options or parameters  used to error out when you do not have any commits in your history  but it now gives you an empty index  to match non-existent commit you are not even on    Documentation  git reset

User · Answer

An addition to the accepted answer  if your mistakenly-added file was huge  you ll probably notice that  even after removing it from the index with  git reset   it still seems to occupy space in the  git directory   This is nothing to be worried about  the file is indeed still in the repository  but only as a  loose object   It will not be copied to other repositories  via clone  push   and the space will be eventually reclaimed - though perhaps not very soon  If you are anxious  you can run   git gc --prune now     Update  what follows is my attempt to clear some confusion that can arise from the most upvoted answers    So  which is the real undo of git add   git reset HEAD  lt file gt     or  git rm --cached  lt file gt    Strictly speaking  and if I m not mistaken  none   git add cannot be undone - safely  in general   Let s recall first what git add  lt file gt  actually does    If  lt file gt  was not previously tracked  git add  adds it to the cache  with its current content  If  lt file gt  was already tracked  git add  saves the current content  snapshot  version  to the cache  In Git  this action is still called add   not mere update it   because two different versions  snapshots  of a file are regarded as two different items  hence  we are indeed adding a new item to the cache  to be eventually committed later    In light of this  the question is slightly ambiguous      I mistakenly added files using the command      The OP s scenario seems to be the first one  untracked file    we want the  undo  to remove the file  not just the current contents  from the tracked items  If this is the case  then it s ok to run  git rm --cached  lt file gt    And we could also run git reset HEAD  lt file gt   This is in general preferable  because it works in both scenarios  it also does the undo when we wrongly added a version of an already tracked item   But there are two caveats   First  There is  as pointed out in the answer  only one scenario in which git reset HEAD doesn t work  but git rm --cached does  a new repository  no commits   But  really  this a practically irrelevant case   Second  Be aware that git reset HEAD  can t magically recover the previously cached file contents  it just resynchronises it from the HEAD  If our misguided git add overwrote a previous staged uncommitted version  we can t recover it  That s why  strictly speaking  we cannot undo       Example     git init   echo  version 1   gt  file txt   git add file txt     First add of file txt   git commit -m  first commit    echo  version 2   gt  file txt   git add  file txt     Stage  don t commit   version 2  of file txt   git diff --cached file txt -version 1  version 2   echo  version 3   gt  file txt   git diff  file txt -version 2  version 3   git add  file txt      Oops we didn t mean this   git reset HEAD file txt    Undo    git diff --cached file txt    No dif  of course  stage    HEAD   git diff file txt     We have irrevocably lost  version 2  -version 1  version 3   Of course  this is not very critical if we just follow the usual lazy workflow of doing  git add  only for adding new files  case 1   and we update new contents via the commit  git commit -a command         Edit  the above is practically correct  but still there can be some slightly hackish convoluted ways for recovering changes that were staged  but not committed and then overwritten - see the comments by Johannes Matokic and iolsmit

User · Answer

Here s a way to avoid this vexing problem when you start a new project    Create the main directory for your new project  Run git init  Now create a  gitignore file  even if it s empty   Commit your  gitignore file    Git makes it really hard to do git reset if you don t have any commits   If you create a tiny initial commit just for the sake of having one  after that you can git add -A and git reset as many times as you want in order to get everything right   Another advantage of this method is that if you run into line-ending troubles later and need to refresh all your files  it s easy    Check out that initial commit   This will remove all your files  Then check out your most recent commit again   This will retrieve fresh copies of your files  using your current line-ending settings

User · Answer

To remove new files from the staging area  and only in case of a new file   as suggested above   git rm --cached FILE   Use rm --cached only for new files accidentally added

User · Answer

To reset every file in a particular folder  and its subfolders   you can use the following command   git reset

User · Answer

git add myfile txt   This will add your file into the to-be-committed list  Quite opposite to this command is   git reset HEAD myfile txt    This will undo it    so  you will be in the previous state  Specified will be again in untracked list  previous state    It will reset your head with that specified file  so  if your head doesn t have it means  it will simply reset it

User · Answer

Use git add -i to remove just-added files from your upcoming commit   Example   Adding the file you didn t want     git add foo   git status   On branch master   Changes to be committed       use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage            new file    foo     Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed             Going into interactive add to undo your add  the commands typed at git here are  r   revert    1   first entry in the list revert shows    return  to drop out of revert mode  and  q   quit      git add -i            staged     unstaged path   1          1 -0      nothing foo      Commands       1   s tatus     2   u pdate     3   r evert     4   a dd untracked   5   p atch      6   d iff       7   q uit       8   h elp What now gt  r            staged     unstaged path   1          1 -0      nothing  f oo Revert gt  gt  1            staged     unstaged path   1          1 -0      nothing  f oo Revert gt  gt   note  foo is untracked now  reverted one path      Commands       1   s tatus     2   u pdate     3   r evert     4   a dd untracked   5   p atch      6   d iff       7   q uit       8   h elp What now gt  q Bye      That s it   Here s your proof  showing that  foo  is back on the untracked list     git status   On branch master   Untracked files       use  git add  lt file gt      to include in what will be committed                  foo nothing added to commit but untracked files present  use  git add  to track

User · Answer

To reset every file in a particular folder  and its subfolders   you can use the following command   git reset

User · Answer

Use git reset HEAD to unstage everything you staged

User · Answer

Use the   command to handle multiple files at a time   git reset HEAD   prj git reset HEAD   bmp git reset HEAD  gdb    etc

User · Answer

You can using this command after git version 2 23   git restore --staged  lt filename gt   Or  you can using this command  git reset HEAD  lt filename gt

User · Answer

The first time I had this problem  I found this post here and from the first answer I learned that I should just do git reset  lt filename gt   It worked fine  Eventually  I happened to have a few subfolders inside my main git folder  I found it easy to just do git add   to add all files inside the subfolders and then git reset the few files that I did not want to add  Nowadays I have lots of files and subfolders  It is tedious to git reset one-by-one but still easier to just git add   first  then reset the few heavy unwanted but useful files and folders  I ve found the following method  which is not recorded here or here  relatively easy  I hope it will be helpful  Let s say that you have the following situation  Folder SubFolder1 file1 txt Folder SubFolder2 fig1 png Folder SubFolderX fig svg Folder SubFolder3  lt manyfiles gt  Folder SubFolder4  lt file1 py  file2 py       file60 py      gt   You want to add all folders and files but not fig1 png  and not SubFolderX  and not file60 py and the list keeps growing     First  make create a bash shell script and give it a name  Say  git add sh  Then add all the paths to all folders and files you want to git reset preceded by git reset --   You can easily copy-paste the paths into the script git add sh as your list of files grows  The git add sh script should look like this     bin bash  git add   git reset -- Folder SubFolder2 fig1 png git reset -- Folder SubFolderX git reset -- Folder SubFolder4 file60 py     bin bash is important  After this  you need to do chmod -x git add sh in the command line to make the script executable and then source git add sh to run it  After that  you can do git commit -m  quot some comment quot   and then git push -u origin master if you have already set up Bitbucket Github  Disclaimer  I ve only tested this in Linux

User · Answer

Use the   command to handle multiple files at a time   git reset HEAD   prj git reset HEAD   bmp git reset HEAD  gdb    etc

User · Answer

If you re on your initial commit and you can t use git reset  just declare  Git bankruptcy  and delete the  git folder and start over

User · Answer

Note that if you fail to specify a revision then you have to include a separator  Example from my console   git reset  lt path to file gt  fatal  ambiguous argument   lt path to file gt    unknown revision or path not in the working tree  Use  --  to separate paths from revisions  git reset --  lt path to file gt  Unstaged changes after reset  M     lt path to file gt     Git version 1 7 5 4

User · Answer

You can undo git add before commit with git reset  lt file gt   which will remove it from the current index  the  quot about to be committed quot  list  without changing anything else  You can use git reset  without any file name to unstage all due changes  This can come in handy when there are too many files to be listed one by one in a reasonable amount of time  In old versions of Git  the above commands are equivalent to git reset HEAD  lt file gt  and git reset HEAD respectively  and will fail if HEAD is undefined  because you haven t yet made any commits in your repository  or ambiguous  because you created a branch called HEAD  which is a stupid thing that you shouldn t do   This was changed in Git 1 8 2  though  so in modern versions of Git you can use the commands above even prior to making your first commit    quot git reset quot   without options or parameters  used to error out when you do not have any commits in your history  but it now gives you an empty index  to match non-existent commit you are not even on    Documentation  git reset

User · Answer

Git has commands for every action imaginable, but it needs extensive knowledge to get things right and because of that it is counter-intuitive at best...

What you did before:

Changed a file and used git add ., or git add <file>.

What you want:

Remove the file from the index, but keep it versioned and left with uncommitted changes in working copy:
```
 git reset HEAD <file>
```
Reset the file to the last state from HEAD, undoing changes and removing them from the index:
```
 # Think `svn revert <file>` IIRC.
 git reset HEAD <file>
 git checkout <file>

 # If you have a `<branch>` named like `<file>`, use:
 git checkout -- <file>
```
This is needed since git reset --hard HEAD won't work with single files.
Remove <file> from index and versioning, keeping the un-versioned file with changes in working copy:
```
 git rm --cached <file>
```
Remove <file> from working copy and versioning completely:
```
 git rm <file>
```

User · Answer

The first time I had this problem  I found this post here and from the first answer I learned that I should just do git reset  lt filename gt   It worked fine  Eventually  I happened to have a few subfolders inside my main git folder  I found it easy to just do git add   to add all files inside the subfolders and then git reset the few files that I did not want to add  Nowadays I have lots of files and subfolders  It is tedious to git reset one-by-one but still easier to just git add   first  then reset the few heavy unwanted but useful files and folders  I ve found the following method  which is not recorded here or here  relatively easy  I hope it will be helpful  Let s say that you have the following situation  Folder SubFolder1 file1 txt Folder SubFolder2 fig1 png Folder SubFolderX fig svg Folder SubFolder3  lt manyfiles gt  Folder SubFolder4  lt file1 py  file2 py       file60 py      gt   You want to add all folders and files but not fig1 png  and not SubFolderX  and not file60 py and the list keeps growing     First  make create a bash shell script and give it a name  Say  git add sh  Then add all the paths to all folders and files you want to git reset preceded by git reset --   You can easily copy-paste the paths into the script git add sh as your list of files grows  The git add sh script should look like this     bin bash  git add   git reset -- Folder SubFolder2 fig1 png git reset -- Folder SubFolderX git reset -- Folder SubFolder4 file60 py     bin bash is important  After this  you need to do chmod -x git add sh in the command line to make the script executable and then source git add sh to run it  After that  you can do git commit -m  quot some comment quot   and then git push -u origin master if you have already set up Bitbucket Github  Disclaimer  I ve only tested this in Linux

User · Answer

The git reset command helps you to modify either the staging area or the staging area and working tree  Git s ability to craft commits exactly like you want means that you sometimes need to undo changes to the changes you staged with git add   You can do that by calling git reset HEAD  lt file to change gt   You have two options to get rid of changes completely  git checkout HEAD  lt file s  or path s  gt  is a quick way to undo changes to your staging area and working tree   Be careful with this command  however  because it removes all changes to your working tree  Git doesn t know about those changes since they ve never been committed  There s no way to get those changes back once you run this command   Another command at your disposal is git reset --hard  It is equally destructive to your working tree - any uncommitted changes or staged changes are lost after running it  Running git reset -hard HEAD does the same thing as git checkout HEAD  It just does not require a file or path to work   You can use --soft with git reset  It resets the repository to the commit you specify and stages all of those changes  Any changes you have already staged are not affected  nor are the changes in your working tree   Finally  you can use --mixed to reset the working tree without staging any changes  This also unstages any changes that are staged

User · Answer

There is also interactive mode   git add -i   Choose option 3 to un add files  In my case I often want to add more than one file  and with interactive mode you can use numbers like this to add files  This will take all but 4  1  2  3  and 5  To choose a sequence  just type 1-5 to take all from 1 to 5   Git staging files

User · Answer

git remove or git rm can be used for this  with the --cached flag  Try   git help rm

User · Answer

Run  git gui   and remove all the files manually or by selecting all of them and clicking on the unstage from commit button

User · Answer

Just type git reset it will revert back and it is like you never typed git add   since your last commit  Make sure you have committed before

User · Answer

If you type   git status   Git will tell you what is staged  etc   including instructions on how to unstage   use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage   I find Git does a pretty good job of nudging me to do the right thing in situations like this   Note  Recent Git versions  1 8 4 x  have changed this message    use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage

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You want   git rm --cached  lt added file to undo gt    Reasoning   When I was new to this  I first tried  git reset      to undo my entire initial add   only to get this  not so  helpful message   fatal  Failed to resolve  HEAD  as a valid ref    It turns out that this is because the HEAD ref  branch   doesn t exist until after the first commit  That is  you ll run into the same beginner s problem as me if your workflow  like mine  was something like    cd to my great new project directory to try out Git  the new hotness git init git add   git status      lots of crap scrolls by         Damn  I didn t want to add all of that  google  undo git add      find Stack Overflow - yay git reset          fatal  Failed to resolve  HEAD  as a valid ref    It further turns out that there s a bug logged against the unhelpfulness of this in the mailing list   And that the correct solution was right there in the Git status output  which  yes  I glossed over as  crap          Changes to be committed       use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage         And the solution indeed is to use git rm --cached FILE   Note the warnings elsewhere here - git rm deletes your local working copy of the file  but not if you use --cached   Here s the result of git help rm      --cached       Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index        Working tree files  whether modified or not  will be left    I proceed to use  git rm --cached     to remove everything and start again  Didn t work though  because while add   is recursive  turns out rm needs -r to recurse  Sigh   git rm -r --cached     Okay  now I m back to where I started  Next time I m going to use -n to do a dry run and see what will be added   git add -n     I zipped up everything to a safe place before trusting git help rm about the --cached not destroying anything  and what if I misspelled it

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One of the most intuitive solutions is using Sourcetree    You can just drag and drop files from staged and unstaged

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Maybe Git has evolved since you posted your question     gt  git --version git version 1 6 2 1   Now  you can try   git reset HEAD     This should be what you are looking for

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git reset filename txt   Will remove a file named filename txt from the current index  the  about to be committed  area  without changing anything else

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git remove or git rm can be used for this  with the --cached flag  Try   git help rm

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To clarify  git add moves changes from the current working directory to the staging area  index    This process is called staging  So the most natural command to stage the changes  changed files  is the obvious one   git stage   git add is just an easier-to-type alias for git stage  Pity there is no git unstage nor git unadd commands  The relevant one is harder to guess or remember  but it is pretty obvious   git reset HEAD --   We can easily create an alias for this   git config --global alias unadd  reset HEAD --  git config --global alias unstage  reset HEAD --    And finally  we have new commands   git add file1 git stage file2 git unadd file2 git unstage file1   Personally I use even shorter aliases   git a   For staging git u   For unstaging

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An addition to the accepted answer  if your mistakenly-added file was huge  you ll probably notice that  even after removing it from the index with  git reset   it still seems to occupy space in the  git directory   This is nothing to be worried about  the file is indeed still in the repository  but only as a  loose object   It will not be copied to other repositories  via clone  push   and the space will be eventually reclaimed - though perhaps not very soon  If you are anxious  you can run   git gc --prune now     Update  what follows is my attempt to clear some confusion that can arise from the most upvoted answers    So  which is the real undo of git add   git reset HEAD  lt file gt     or  git rm --cached  lt file gt    Strictly speaking  and if I m not mistaken  none   git add cannot be undone - safely  in general   Let s recall first what git add  lt file gt  actually does    If  lt file gt  was not previously tracked  git add  adds it to the cache  with its current content  If  lt file gt  was already tracked  git add  saves the current content  snapshot  version  to the cache  In Git  this action is still called add   not mere update it   because two different versions  snapshots  of a file are regarded as two different items  hence  we are indeed adding a new item to the cache  to be eventually committed later    In light of this  the question is slightly ambiguous      I mistakenly added files using the command      The OP s scenario seems to be the first one  untracked file    we want the  undo  to remove the file  not just the current contents  from the tracked items  If this is the case  then it s ok to run  git rm --cached  lt file gt    And we could also run git reset HEAD  lt file gt   This is in general preferable  because it works in both scenarios  it also does the undo when we wrongly added a version of an already tracked item   But there are two caveats   First  There is  as pointed out in the answer  only one scenario in which git reset HEAD doesn t work  but git rm --cached does  a new repository  no commits   But  really  this a practically irrelevant case   Second  Be aware that git reset HEAD  can t magically recover the previously cached file contents  it just resynchronises it from the HEAD  If our misguided git add overwrote a previous staged uncommitted version  we can t recover it  That s why  strictly speaking  we cannot undo       Example     git init   echo  version 1   gt  file txt   git add file txt     First add of file txt   git commit -m  first commit    echo  version 2   gt  file txt   git add  file txt     Stage  don t commit   version 2  of file txt   git diff --cached file txt -version 1  version 2   echo  version 3   gt  file txt   git diff  file txt -version 2  version 3   git add  file txt      Oops we didn t mean this   git reset HEAD file txt    Undo    git diff --cached file txt    No dif  of course  stage    HEAD   git diff file txt     We have irrevocably lost  version 2  -version 1  version 3   Of course  this is not very critical if we just follow the usual lazy workflow of doing  git add  only for adding new files  case 1   and we update new contents via the commit  git commit -a command         Edit  the above is practically correct  but still there can be some slightly hackish convoluted ways for recovering changes that were staged  but not committed and then overwritten - see the comments by Johannes Matokic and iolsmit

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git reset filename txt        Will remove a file named filename txt from the current index  the  about to be committed  area  without changing anything else

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You can using this command after git version 2 23   git restore --staged  lt filename gt   Or  you can using this command  git reset HEAD  lt filename gt

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You want   git rm --cached  lt added file to undo gt    Reasoning   When I was new to this  I first tried  git reset      to undo my entire initial add   only to get this  not so  helpful message   fatal  Failed to resolve  HEAD  as a valid ref    It turns out that this is because the HEAD ref  branch   doesn t exist until after the first commit  That is  you ll run into the same beginner s problem as me if your workflow  like mine  was something like    cd to my great new project directory to try out Git  the new hotness git init git add   git status      lots of crap scrolls by         Damn  I didn t want to add all of that  google  undo git add      find Stack Overflow - yay git reset          fatal  Failed to resolve  HEAD  as a valid ref    It further turns out that there s a bug logged against the unhelpfulness of this in the mailing list   And that the correct solution was right there in the Git status output  which  yes  I glossed over as  crap          Changes to be committed       use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage         And the solution indeed is to use git rm --cached FILE   Note the warnings elsewhere here - git rm deletes your local working copy of the file  but not if you use --cached   Here s the result of git help rm      --cached       Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index        Working tree files  whether modified or not  will be left    I proceed to use  git rm --cached     to remove everything and start again  Didn t work though  because while add   is recursive  turns out rm needs -r to recurse  Sigh   git rm -r --cached     Okay  now I m back to where I started  Next time I m going to use -n to do a dry run and see what will be added   git add -n     I zipped up everything to a safe place before trusting git help rm about the --cached not destroying anything  and what if I misspelled it

User · Answer

One of the most intuitive solutions is using Sourcetree    You can just drag and drop files from staged and unstaged

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To undo git add  use   git reset filename

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In Sourcetree you can do this easily via the GUI  You can check which command Sourcetree uses to unstage a file   I created a new file and added it to Git  Then I unstaged it using the Sourcetree GUI  This is the result      Unstaging files  08 12 15 10 43    git -c diff mnemonicprefix false -c core quotepath false -c credential helper sourcetree reset -q -- path to file filename java   Sourcetree uses reset to unstage new files

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Suppose I create a new file  newFile txt     Suppose I add the file accidentally  git add newFile txt     Now I want to undo this add  before commit  git reset newFile txt

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git add myfile txt   This will add your file into the to-be-committed list  Quite opposite to this command is   git reset HEAD myfile txt    This will undo it    so  you will be in the previous state  Specified will be again in untracked list  previous state    It will reset your head with that specified file  so  if your head doesn t have it means  it will simply reset it

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For a specific file         git reset my file txt   git checkout my file txt      For all added files         git reset     git checkout        Note  checkout changes the code in the files and moves to the last updated  committed  state  reset doesn t change the codes  it just resets the header

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git remove or git rm can be used for this  with the --cached flag  Try   git help rm

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If you type   git status   Git will tell you what is staged  etc   including instructions on how to unstage   use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage   I find Git does a pretty good job of nudging me to do the right thing in situations like this   Note  Recent Git versions  1 8 4 x  have changed this message    use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage

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Note that if you fail to specify a revision then you have to include a separator  Example from my console   git reset  lt path to file gt  fatal  ambiguous argument   lt path to file gt    unknown revision or path not in the working tree  Use  --  to separate paths from revisions  git reset --  lt path to file gt  Unstaged changes after reset  M     lt path to file gt     Git version 1 7 5 4

User · Answer

If you type   git status   Git will tell you what is staged  etc   including instructions on how to unstage   use  git reset HEAD  lt file gt      to unstage   I find Git does a pretty good job of nudging me to do the right thing in situations like this   Note  Recent Git versions  1 8 4 x  have changed this message    use  git rm --cached  lt file gt      to unstage

[git] How do I undo 'git add' before commit?

Examples related to git