Git remove unpushed commit - Shell/Bash

When working with Git, it is not uncommon to create a commit and realize later that it should not have been created in the first place. This can happen due to various reasons, such as accidentally adding files that should have been ignored, or making changes that were not intended to be committed.

In such cases, it is recommended to remove the unwanted commit before pushing it to the remote repository. This ensures that the commit history stays clean and organized, and does not cause any issues for other collaborators.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to remove an unpushed commit using the Shell/Bash command line interface.

Step 1: Identify the commit to be removed

Before we can remove a commit, we must first identify the commit that needs to be removed. We can do this by using the git log command, which displays a list of all commits in the repository.

git log

This command will display the commit history in reverse chronological order, with the most recent commit at the top.

To find the commit that needs to be removed, we can look for the commit message or the commit hash.

Step 2: Remove the commit using Git reset

Once we have identified the commit that needs to be removed, we can use the git reset command to remove it from the commit history.

git reset HEAD~1

This command will remove the last (most recent) commit from the branch. If we want to remove a specific commit, we can replace HEAD~1 with the commit hash.

Step 3: Delete the unwanted files (optional)

If the commit contained files that are no longer needed, we can delete them using the rm command. For example, to delete a file named unwanted_file.txt, we can use the following command:

rm unwanted_file.txt

Step 4: Commit the changes

After removing the unwanted commit and deleting the unwanted files (if any), we can commit the changes using the git commit command.

git commit -m "Removed unwanted commit"

Step 5: Push the changes to the remote repository

Finally, we can push the changes to the remote repository using the git push command.

git push origin branch_name

This command will push the changes to the remote repository, where other collaborators can fetch and merge them into their local repository.

Conclusion

Removing an unwanted commit from the commit history is an important task when working with Git. By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you can remove an unpushed commit and keep your commit history clean and organized.