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.
In the simplest terms, git pull
does a git fetch
followed by a git merge
.
You can do a git fetch
at any time to update your remote-tracking branches under refs/remotes/<remote>/
. This operation never changes any of your own local branches under refs/heads
, and is safe to do without changing your working copy. I have even heard of people running git fetch
periodically in a cron job in the background (although I wouldn't recommend doing this).
A git pull
is what you would do to bring a local branch up-to-date with its remote version, while also updating your other remote-tracking branches.
From the Git documentation for git pull
:
In its default mode, git pull
is shorthand for git fetch
followed by git merge FETCH_HEAD
.
Best Answer
For all practical purposes, the first thing you should be worried about is CHANGING YOUR PASSWORDS! It's not clear from your question whether your git repository is entirely local or whether you have a remote repository elsewhere yet; if it is remote and not secured from others you have a problem. If anyone has cloned that repository before you fix this, they'll have a copy of your passwords on their local machine, and there's no way you can force them to update to your "fixed" version with it gone from history. The only safe thing you can do is change your password to something else everywhere you've used it.
With that out of the way, here's how to fix it. GitHub answered exactly that question as an FAQ:
Note for Windows users: use double quotes (") instead of singles in this command
Update 2019:
This is the current code from the FAQ:
Keep in mind that once you've pushed this code to a remote repository like GitHub and others have cloned that remote repository, you're now in a situation where you're rewriting history. When others try pull down your latest changes after this, they'll get a message indicating that the changes can't be applied because it's not a fast-forward.
To fix this, they'll have to either delete their existing repository and re-clone it, or follow the instructions under "RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE" in the git-rebase manpage.
Tip: Execute
git rebase --interactive
In the future, if you accidentally commit some changes with sensitive information but you notice before pushing to a remote repository, there are some easier fixes. If you last commit is the one to add the sensitive information, you can simply remove the sensitive information, then run:
That will amend the previous commit with any new changes you've made, including entire file removals done with a
git rm
. If the changes are further back in history but still not pushed to a remote repository, you can do an interactive rebase:That opens an editor with the commits you've made since your last common ancestor with the remote repository. Change "pick" to "edit" on any lines representing a commit with sensitive information, and save and quit. Git will walk through the changes, and leave you at a spot where you can:
For each change with sensitive information. Eventually, you'll end up back on your branch, and you can safely push the new changes.