1git-clean(1) 2============ 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git clean' [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>... 12 13DESCRIPTION 14----------- 15 16Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not 17under version control, starting from the current directory. 18 19Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the `-x` 20option is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for 21example, be useful to remove all build products. 22 23If any optional `<path>...` arguments are given, only those paths 24are affected. 25 26OPTIONS 27------- 28-d:: 29 Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files. 30 If an untracked directory is managed by a different Git 31 repository, it is not removed by default. Use -f option twice 32 if you really want to remove such a directory. 33 34-f:: 35--force:: 36 If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set 37 to false, 'git clean' will refuse to delete files or directories 38 unless given -f, -n or -i. Git will refuse to delete directories 39 with .git sub directory or file unless a second -f 40 is given. 41 42-i:: 43--interactive:: 44 Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See 45 ``Interactive mode'' for details. 46 47-n:: 48--dry-run:: 49 Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done. 50 51-q:: 52--quiet:: 53 Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are 54 successfully removed. 55 56-e <pattern>:: 57--exclude=<pattern>:: 58 In addition to those found in .gitignore (per directory) and 59 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, also consider these patterns to be in the 60 set of the ignore rules in effect. 61 62-x:: 63 Don't use the standard ignore rules read from .gitignore (per 64 directory) and $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, but do still use the ignore 65 rules given with `-e` options. This allows removing all untracked 66 files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in 67 conjunction with 'git reset') to create a pristine 68 working directory to test a clean build. 69 70-X:: 71 Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild 72 everything from scratch, but keep manually created files. 73 74Interactive mode 75---------------- 76When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the 77files and directories to be cleaned, and goes into its 78interactive command loop. 79 80The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and 81gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends 82with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given 83and type return, like this: 84 85------------ 86 *** Commands *** 87 1: clean 2: filter by pattern 3: select by numbers 88 4: ask each 5: quit 6: help 89 What now> 1 90------------ 91 92You also could say `c` or `clean` above as long as the choice is unique. 93 94The main command loop has 6 subcommands. 95 96clean:: 97 98 Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit. 99 100filter by pattern:: 101 102 This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an 103 "Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated 104 patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. 105 E.g. "*.c *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from 106 deletion. When you are satisfied with the filtered result, press 107 ENTER (empty) back to the main menu. 108 109select by numbers:: 110 111 This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an 112 "Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double 113 '>>' like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated 114 with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" 115 to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a 116 range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to 117 choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose everything. 118 Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER 119 (empty) back to the main menu. 120 121ask each:: 122 123 This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order 124 to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient 125 as the above two actions. 126 127quit:: 128 129 This lets you quit without do cleaning. 130 131help:: 132 133 Show brief usage of interactive git-clean. 134 135SEE ALSO 136-------- 137linkgit:gitignore[5] 138 139GIT 140--- 141Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite