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How do you delete untracked local files from your current working tree?

As per the Git Documentation git clean

Remove untracked files from the working tree

Step 1 is to show what will be deleted by using the -n option:

Clean Step - beware: this will delete files:

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.

-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.

Use git clean -f -d to make sure that directories are also removed.

You can then check if your files are really gone with git status.

I am surprised nobody mentioned this before:

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:

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

git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

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

git clean -d -f -f

To remove all untracked files, The simple
way is to add all of them first and reset the repo as below

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) https://stackoverflow.com/a/12681856/338986

This is what I always use:

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

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

If needed to remove untracked files from particular subdirectory,

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

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

git clean -fd removes directory

git clean -fX removes ignored files

git clean -fx removes ignored and un-ignored files

can be used all above options in combination as

git clean -fdXx

check git manual for more help

A better way is to use: git clean

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.

OK, deleting unwanted untracked files and folders are easy using git in command line, just do it like this:

Double check before doing it as it will delete the files and folders without making any history...

Also in this case, -f stands for force and -d stands for directory...

So, if you want to delete files only, you can use -f only:

If you want to delete(directories) and files, you can delete only untracked directories and files like this:

Also, you can use -x flag for including the files which are ignored by git. This would be helpful if you want to delete everything.

And adding -i flag, makes git asking you for permission for deleting files one by one on the go.

If you not sure and want to check things first, add -n flag.

Use -q if you don't want to see any report after successful deletion.

I also create the image below to make it more memorisable, specially I have seen many people confuse -f for cleaning folder sometimes or mix it up somehow!

User interactive approach:

-i for interactive
-f for force
-d for directory
-x for ignored files(add if required)

Note: Add -n or --dry-run to just check what it will do.

To remove all extra folders and files (i.e. same as if fresh clone)

To remove only extra folders but not files (ex. build folder)

To remove extra folders + only ignored files (ex. build + IDE temp files)

If file wasn't ignored and not yet checked-in then it stays. Note the capital X.

New interactive mode

git clean -f -d -x $(git rev-parse --show-cdup) applies clean to the root directory, no matter where you call it within a repository directory tree. I use it all the time as it does not force you to leave the folder where you working now and allows to clean & commit right from the place where you are.

Be sure that flags -f, -d, -x match your needs:

There are other flags as well available, just check git clean --help.

A lifehack for such situation I just invented and tried (that works perfectly):

Beware! Be sure to commit any needed changes (even in non-untracked files) before performing this.

If you just want to delete the files listed as untracked by 'git status'

I prefer this to 'git clean' because 'git clean' will delete files
ignored by git, so your next build will have to rebuild everything
and you may lose your IDE settings too.

For me only following worked:

In all other cases, I was getting message "Skipping Directory" for some subdirectories.

To know what will be deleted before actually deleting:

git clean -d -n

It will output something like:

Would remove sample.txt

To delete everything listed in the output of the previous command:

git clean -d -f

It will output something like:

Removing sample.txt

To remove the untracked files you should first use command to view the files that will be affected by cleaning

This will show you the list of files that will be deleted. Now to actually delete those files use this command:

Normal git clean command doesn't remove untracked files with my git version 2.9.0.windows.1.

git clean -f to remove untracked files from working directory.

I have covered some basics here in my blog, git-intro-basic-commands

uggested Command for Removing Untracked Files from git docs is git clean

git clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

Suggested Method: Interative Mode by using git clean -i
so we can have control over it. let see remaining available options.

Available Options:

Explanation:

1. -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.

2. -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.

3. -i, --interactive

Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See “Interactive mode” for details.

4. -n, --dry-run

Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

5. -q, --quiet

Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are successfully removed.

6. -e , --exclude=

In addition to those found in .gitignore (per directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, also consider these patterns to be in the
set of the ignore rules in effect.

7. -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.

8. -X

Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

We can easily removed local untracked files from the current git working tree by using below git comments.

Example:

Links :

Always use -n before running the actual command as it will show you what files would get removed.

By default, git clean will only remove untracked files that are not ignored. Any file that matches a pattern in your .gitignore or other ignore files will not be removed. If you want to remove those files too, you can add a -x to the clean command.

There is also interactive mode available -i with the clean command

If you are not 100% sure that deleting your uncommitted work is safe, you could use stashing instead

It will also clear your directory but give you flexibility to retrieve the files at any point in time using stash with apply or pop. Then at later point you could clear your stash using:

The following command will clean out
the current git repository and all its submodules recursively:

oh-my-zsh with zsh provides those great aliases via the git plugin. They can be used in bash as well.

gclean='git clean -fd'
gpristine='git reset --hard && git clean -dfx'

will remove the untracked files from the current git

when you want to remove directories and files, this will delete only untracked directories and files

Note: First navigate to the directory and checkout the branch you want to clean.

-i interactive mode and it will tell you what will be removed and you can choose an action from the list.

To clean files only [Folders will not be listed and will not be cleaned]:
$ git clean -i

To clean files and folders:
$ git clean -d -i

-d including directories.

If you choose c from the list. The files/folders will be deleted that are not tracked and will also remove files/folders that you mess-up.*

For instance: If you restructure the folder in your remote and pull the changes to your local computer. files/folders that are created by others initially will be in past folder and in the new one that you restructure.

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