I have a folder, c:\websites\test, and it contains folders and files that were checked out from a repository that no longer exists. How do I get Subversion to stop tracking that folder and any of the subfolders and files?
I know I could simply delete the .svn folder, but there are a lot of sub-folders in many layers.
Also, if you are using TortoiseSVN, just export to the current working copy location and it will remove the .svn folders and files.
http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-export.html#tsvn-dug-export-unversion
Updated Answer for Subversion 1.7:
In Subversion 1.7 the working copy has been revised extensively. There is only one .svn folder, located in the base of the working copy. If you are using 1.7, then just deleting the .svn folder and its contents is an easy solution (regardless of using TortoiseSVN or command line tools).
Try svn export.
You should be able to do something like this:
svn export /path/to/old/working/copy /path/to/plain/code
And then just delete the old working copy.
TortoiseSVN also has an export feature, which behaves the same way.
If you are running Windows then you can do a search on that folder for .svn and that will list them all. Pressing Ctrl + A will select all of them and pressing delete will remove all the 'pesky' Subversion stuff.
I found that you don't even need to copy to a temporary location. You can do a
svn export --force .
and the .svn files will be removed in situ, leaving the other files as is. Very convenient and less prone to clutter.
Use the svn export command:
cd c:\websites\test
svn export c:\websites\test_copy
All files under version control will be exported. Double check to make sure you haven't missed anything.
Just remove the .svn folder inside the required folder then the control will be automatically removed.
You can use "svn export" for creating a copy of that folder without svn data, or you can add that folder to ignore list
There's also a nice little open source tool called SVN Cleaner which adds three options to the Windows Explorer Context Menu:
Use the following:
svn rm --keep-local <folder name> to remove the folder and everything within it.
svn rm --keep-local <folder name>/* to keep the folder, but remove everything within the folder.
Here is an example of what happens:
~/code/web/sites/testapp $ svn rm --keep-local includes/data/*
D includes/data/json
D includes/data/json/index.html
D includes/data/json/oembed
D includes/data/json/oembed/1.0
D includes/data/json/oembed/1.0/embed1.json
D includes/data/json/oembed/1.0/embed2.json
D includes/data/json/oembed/1.0/embed3.json