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up vote 2907 down vote favorite
781

How do you delete untracked local files from your current branch?

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18  
This interactive git cheat sheet ndpsoftware.com/git-cheatsheet.html shows the git workspace (google gives you better results with "workspace" than "working copy"). – qneill Feb 1 '13 at 15:43
14  
Note: if you only want to remove some untracked files, but not all of them, git clean has now an interactive mode! See my answer to this other question: git 1.8.4+ – VonC Jul 23 '13 at 6:00
4  
Note that you're not removing files from git branch, as branch is a reference to a commit and therefore doesn't contain untracked files. Those are only present in the working directory and have nothing to do with branches. That's probably just terminology clarification. – Pavel Šimerda Sep 14 '14 at 22:28
1  
@unegma shouldn't your .vagrant folder be in your .gitignore anyway? – Dan Hanly Jan 16 at 9:16
1  
Interesting, I didn't realise clean considered files marked in gitignore! – timhc22 Jan 16 at 11:18

12 Answers 12

up vote 3988 down vote accepted

Show what will be deleted with the -n option:

git clean -f -n

Then - beware: this will delete files - run:

git clean -f

If you want to also remove directories, run git clean -f -d or git clean -fd

If you just want to remove ignored files, run git clean -f -X or git clean -fX

If you want to remove ignored as well as 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, then unless you specify -f nothing will actually happen.

See the git-clean docs for more information.

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88  
git clean -f works only in the directory where it's called (and subdirectories). If you want to clean the whole working copy, you should call it in its root directory. – Eduardo Bezerra Mar 8 '13 at 10:51
90  
Got it, git clean -xfd – Michelle May 14 '13 at 12:41
6  
It is also removing all files inside .gitignore. I need to delete only files/folders which are new and not in .gitignore – Kostanos Aug 5 '13 at 23:02
8  
@Kostanos If you don't want to remove files that are in .gitignore, then do not provide the -x flag. – Lo-Tan Aug 23 '13 at 18:44
14  
git clean -f :/ works as if you had run it in the root repo dir. See also later answers also accounting for submodules with git clean -ffxd :/ – here Oct 16 '14 at 20:38
up vote 389 down vote

git clean -f -d to be sure that also directories are gone! you can check with git status if they are really gone.

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25  
As previously stated, good to dry-run it with git clean -n -d – staticelf Dec 9 '13 at 10:54
up vote 184 down vote

I am so surprised nobody mentioned this before:

git clean -i

That stands for interactive and you will get a quick overview of what is going to be deleted offering you the possibility to include/exclude the affected files. Overall, still faster than running the mandatory --dry-run before the real cleaning.

You will have to toss in a -d if you also want to take care of empty folders. At the end, it makes for a nice alias:

git iclean

That being said, the extra hand holding of interactive commands can be tiring for experienced users. These days I just use the already mentioned git clean -fd

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1  
Definitely the fastest method while still providing notification of what will be removed – DrewT May 6 '14 at 15:11
11  
got: error: unknown switch `i' – pal4life Jun 18 '14 at 21:58
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@pal4life It was added in 1.8.4, you might be running an older version of git? github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.4.txt – mabac Sep 30 '14 at 12:37
1  
@SystematicFrank, Don't use alias, they don't really scale beyond 1 person.... – Pacerier Oct 20 at 11:01
up vote 102 down vote

If untracked directory is a git repository of its own (e.g. submodule), you need to use -f twice:

git clean -d -f -f

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this is a command which should be remembered. – Vigh Iosif Apr 15 at 13:39
5  
Or shorthand: git clean -dff – Dmitry Ginzburg Jun 26 at 16:47
    
BTW, this is written in documentation : Git will refuse to delete directories with .git sub directory or file unless a second -f is given. But thanks anyway! – Maxim Suslov Jul 24 at 9:03
up vote 52 down vote

I like git stash save -u because you can undo them all with git stash pop.

EDIT: Also I found a way to show untracked file in a stash (e.g. git show stash@{0}^3) http://stackoverflow.com/a/12681856/338986

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up vote 50 down vote

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

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same comment as previous : linux.die.net/man/1/git-clean – dlewin Nov 3 '11 at 14:04
up vote 39 down vote

If needed to remove untracked files from particular subdirectory,

git clean -f {dir_path}

And combined way to delete untracked dir/files and ignored files. 

git clean -fxd {dir_path}

after this you will have modified files only in git status.

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up vote 34 down vote

This is what I always use:

git clean -fdx

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

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up vote 13 down vote

git clean -fd removes directory

git clean -fX removes ignored files

git clean -fx removes ignored and un-ignored files

check git manual for more help

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up vote 13 down vote

A better way is to use: git clean

git clean -d -x -f

This removes untracked files, including directories (-d) and files ignored by git (-x).

Also, replace the -f argument with -n to perform a dry-run or -i for interactive mode and it will tell you what will be removed.

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up vote 1 down vote

Someone should really mention:

git clean [<options>]

Am I right?

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protected by Elenasys Jan 13 '14 at 23:49

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