git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Synopsis

git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>…​

Description

Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not under version control, starting from the current directory.

Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be useful to remove all build products.

If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are affected.

Step 1 is to show what will be deleted by using the -n option:

# Print out the list of files and directories which will be removed (dry run)
git clean -n -d

Clean Step - beware: this will delete files:

# Delete the files from the repository
git clean -f

• To remove directories, run git clean -f -d or git clean -fd
• To remove ignored files, run git clean -f -X or git clean -fX
• To remove ignored and non-ignored files, run git clean -f -x or git clean -fx

Note the case difference on the X for the two latter commands.

If clean.requireForce is set to "true" (the default) in your configuration, one needs to specify -f otherwise nothing will actually happen.

Again see the git-clean docs for more information.

Options

-f, --force

If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to run unless given -f, -n or -i.

-x

Don’t use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

-X

Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

-n, --dry-run

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

-d

Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.

Use git clean -f -d to make sure that directories are also removed.

1. Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

   git clean -n
   

   or

   git clean --dry-run
   

2. Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git repository, it is not removed by default. Use the -f option twice if you really want to remove such a directory.

   git clean -fd
   

You can then check if your files are really gone with git status.

git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

This is what I always use:

git clean -fdx

For a very large project you might want to run it a couple of times.

git-clean is what you are looking for. It is used to remove untracked files from the working tree.

Be careful while running `git clean` command.

Always use -n first

Always use -n before running the clean command as it will show you what files would get removed.

-d Normally, when no is specified, git clean will not recurse into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories mentioned under --force) will be removed.

-f | --force If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second -f is given.

git clean -n -d 
git clean -n -d -f

Now run without -n if output was what you intend to remove.

git clean -d -f

By default, git clean will only remove untracked files that are not ignored. Any file that matches a pattern in your .gitignore or other ignore files will not be removed. If you want to remove those files too, you can add a -x to the clean command.

git clean -f -d -x

There is also interactive mode available -i with the clean command

git clean -x -i

Alternatively

git stash --all

Before you use stash --all note: If the --all option is used, then the ignored files are stashed and cleaned in addition to the untracked files.

git stash push --keep-index

If the --keep-index option is used, all changes already added to the index are left intact. Your staged changes remain in your workspace, but at the same time, they are also saved into your stash.

Calling git stash without any arguments is equivalent to git stash push.

git stash push -m "name your stash" // before git stash save (deprecated)

Stashing based on the used flags can clear your directory from unstaged / staged files by writing them to stash storage. I give’s flexibility to retrieve the files at any point in time using stash with apply or pop. Then if you are fine with removing your stashed files you could run:

git stash drop // or clean

To see full instruction on how to work with stash see this How to name and retrieve a stash by name in git?

To remove Untracked files :

git add .
git reset --hard HEAD

git add --all, git stash and git stash drop, try these three commands in this order inorder to remove all untracked files. By adding all those untracked files to git and stashing them will move all those untracked files to stash list and dropping out top one i.e., stash@{0} will remove the stashed changes from stash list.

To remove the untracked files you should first use command to view the files that will be affected by cleaning

git clean -fdn

This will show you the list of files that will be deleted. Now to actually delete those files use this command:

git clean -fd

Normal git clean command doesn't remove untracked files with my git version 2.9.0.windows.1.

$ git clean -fdx     # doesn't remove untracked files
$ git clean -fdx *   # Append star then it works!

Clean out git repository and all submodules recursively

The following command will clean out the current git repository and all its submodules recursively:

(git clean -d -x -f && git submodule foreach --recursive git clean -d -x -f)

oh-my-zsh with zsh provides those great aliases via the git plugin. They can be used in bash as well.

gclean='git clean -fd'
gpristine='git reset --hard && git clean -dfx'

• gclean removes untracked directories in addition to untracked files.
• gpristine hard reset the local changes, remove untracked directories, untracked files and don't use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore rules given with -e options. This allows removing all untracked files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean build.

git clean -f

will remove the untracked files from the current git

git clean -fd

when you want to remove directories and files, this will delete only untracked directories and files

I like to use git stash command, later you can get stashed files and changes. git clean is also a good option but totally depends on your requirement. here is the explanation of git stash and git clean,7.3 Git Tools - Stashing and Cleaning

To remove complete changes git clean -f -d

$ git clean -f -d
Removing client/app/helpers/base64.js
Removing files/
Removing package.json.bak

where 
-f is force 
-d is a directory 

I think the safe and easy way is this!

git add .
git stash 

For more information https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes/git-stash#stashing-your-work

I haved failed using most popular answers here - git doesn't delete untracked files from the repository anyway. No idea why. This is my super simplified answer without SPECIAL GIT COMMANDS!

Mission: delete untracked files from git repository:

1. Move files and folders elsewhere from your local project folder for a while
2. Delete all lines in .gitignore about these files and folders for the commit
3. Git add .
4. Git commit -m “Cleaning repository from untracked files”
5. Git push

All files and folders has been deleted from the repository.

Lets restore them on localhost if you need them:

1. Move back all files and folders you have moved temporary to the local project folder again
2. Move back all lines about these files and folders to .gitignore
3. Git add .
4. Git commit -m “Checking or files not appearing again in git repository”
5. Git push

You are done!

If nothing else works, to simply remove all the changes listed by the "git status" command one can use the following combo:

git add -A && git commit -m temp && git reset --hard HEAD^

This will first stage all of your changes then create a temporary commit and then discard it.

usage: git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e ] [-x | -X] [--] ...

-q, --quiet           do not print names of files removed
-n, --dry-run         dry run
-f, --force           force
-i, --interactive     interactive cleaning
-d                    remove whole directories
-e, --exclude <pattern>
                      add <pattern> to ignore rules
-x                    remove ignored files, too
-X                    remove only ignored files

This can be done using a shell script, I use this scrtipt that lists what will be removed, then lets me confirm the operation.

This is useful since I sometimes have patches or other files I'd like to check on before wiping everything away.

#!/bin/bash
readarray -t -d '' FILES < <(git ls-files -z --other --directory)
if [ "$FILES" = "" ]; then
    echo  "Nothing to clean!"
    exit 0
fi
echo -e "Dirty files:\n"
printf '  %s\n' "${FILES[@]}"
DO_REMOVE=0
while true; do
    echo ""
    read -p "Remove ${#FILES[@]} files? [y/n]: " choice
    case "$choice" in
        y|Y )
            DO_REMOVE=1
            break ;;
        n|N )
            echo "Exiting!"
            break ;;
        * ) echo "Invalid input, expected [Y/y/N/n]"
            continue ;;
    esac
done

if [ "$DO_REMOVE" -eq 1 ];then
    echo "Removing!"
    for f in "${FILES[@]}"; do
        rm -rfv -- "$f"
    done
fi

I use this:

1. git status
2. copy the path of the file
3. rm <path of file>

My project has a lot of generated files created by a giant ANT build script. Using git clean would create chaos.