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 Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore rules 59 (see linkgit:gitignore[5]). 60 61-x:: 62 Don't use the standard ignore rules (see linkgit:gitignore[5]), but 63 still use the ignore rules given with `-e` options from the command 64 line. This allows removing all untracked 65 files, including build products. This can be used (possibly in 66 conjunction with 'git reset') to create a pristine 67 working directory to test a clean build. 68 69-X:: 70 Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild 71 everything from scratch, but keep manually created files. 72 73Interactive mode 74---------------- 75When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the 76files and directories to be cleaned, and goes into its 77interactive command loop. 78 79The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and 80gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends 81with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given 82and type return, like this: 83 84------------ 85 *** Commands *** 86 1: clean 2: filter by pattern 3: select by numbers 87 4: ask each 5: quit 6: help 88 What now> 1 89------------ 90 91You also could say `c` or `clean` above as long as the choice is unique. 92 93The main command loop has 6 subcommands. 94 95clean:: 96 97 Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit. 98 99filter by pattern:: 100 101 This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an 102 "Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated 103 patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. 104 E.g. "*.c *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from 105 deletion. When you are satisfied with the filtered result, press 106 ENTER (empty) back to the main menu. 107 108select by numbers:: 109 110 This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an 111 "Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double 112 '>>' like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated 113 with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" 114 to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a 115 range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to 116 choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose everything. 117 Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER 118 (empty) back to the main menu. 119 120ask each:: 121 122 This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order 123 to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient 124 as the above two actions. 125 126quit:: 127 128 This lets you quit without do cleaning. 129 130help:: 131 132 Show brief usage of interactive git-clean. 133 134SEE ALSO 135-------- 136linkgit:gitignore[5] 137 138GIT 139--- 140Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite