Git Remove Untracked Files - Shell/Bash

As a programmer, you may have come across situations where you have untracked files in your Git repository that you no longer need. These files can clutter your workspace and make it difficult to manage your code effectively. Fortunately, Git provides a simple command to remove untracked files from your repository.

The Command

To remove untracked files from your Git repository, you can use the following command in your terminal:

git clean -f

This command will remove all untracked files from your repository. Be careful when using this command as it will permanently delete the files.

Options

The git clean command also provides several options that you can use to customize its behavior:

Dry Run

You can use the --dry-run option to see which files will be removed without actually deleting them. This can be useful if you want to preview the files that will be deleted before running the actual command.

git clean -f --dry-run

Delete Directories

By default, git clean only removes files, not directories. However, you can use the -d option to also remove directories.

git clean -f -d

Ignore Files

You can use the -i option to interactively choose which files to remove. This can be useful if you want to keep some of the untracked files.

git clean -f -i

Exclude Files

You can use the -x option to exclude certain files or patterns from being removed. For example, to exclude all .log files, you can use the following command:

git clean -f -x *.log

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to remove untracked files from your Git repository using the git clean command. We also explored some of the options that you can use to customize its behavior. By using this command, you can keep your workspace clean and organized, making it easier to manage your code.