I need to exclude a folder (name uploads) from tracking. I tried to run
git rm -r --cached wordpress/wp-content/uploads
and after that I added the path to .gitignore
/wordpress/wp-content/uploads
but when I ran git status
they show up as deleted. If I try to commit the changes, the files will be deleted, not only removed from tracking.
What am I doing wrong?
I have also tried
git update-index --assume-unchanged <file>
but this seems to untrack only files. But I need to remove an entire folder (including subfolders) from tracking.
I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to add a little as the marked solution didn't solve the problem for me (although I tried many times).
The only way I could actually stop git form tracking the folder was to do the following:
git rm -r --cached your_folder/
your_folder/
to .gitignoreYou should now see that the folder is no longer tracked.
Don't ask me why just clearing the cache didn't work for me, I am not a Git super wizard but this is how I solved the issue.
From the git documentation:
Another useful thing you may want to do is to keep the file in your working tree but remove it from your staging area. In other words, you may want to keep the file on your hard drive but not have Git track it anymore. This is particularly useful if you forgot to add something to your .gitignore file and accidentally staged it, like a large log file or a bunch of .a compiled files. To do this, use the --cached option:
$ git rm --cached readme.txt
So maybe don't include the "-r"?
if file is committed and pushed to github then you should run
git rm --fileName
git ls-files
to make sure that the file is removed or untracked
git commit -m "UntrackChanges"
git push
This works for me:
git rm -r --cached --ignore-unmatch folder_name
--ignore-unmatch
is important here, without that option git will exit with error on the first file not in the index.
To forget directory recursively add /*/*
to the path:
git update-index --assume-unchanged wordpress/wp-content/uploads/*/*
Using git rm --cached
is not good for collaboration. More details here: How to stop tracking and ignore changes to a file in Git?
Source: Stackoverflow.com