Is there a way to do a git pull that ignores any local file changes without blowing the directory away and having to perform a git clone?
asked Nov 11, 2010 at 17:19
16 Answers
If you mean you want the pull to overwrite local changes, doing the merge as if the working tree were clean, well, clean the working tree:
git reset --hard
git pull
If there are untracked local files you could use git clean to remove them.
git clean -fto remove untracked files-dfto remove untracked files and directories-xdfto remove untracked or ignored files or directories
If on the other hand you want to keep the local modifications somehow, you'd use stash to hide them away before pulling, then reapply them afterwards:
git stash
git pull
git stash pop
I don't think it makes any sense to literally ignore the changes, though - half of pull is merge, and it needs to merge the committed versions of content with the versions it fetched.
answered Nov 11, 2010 at 17:25
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5If after
git resetyour files still differ from the remote, read stackoverflow.com/questions/1257592/… Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 22:31 -
4Git is the strangest thing ever. Git reset --hard done. Then git status: Your branch is ahead by 2 commits.– ShailenCommented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:19
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49@shailenTJ "Local changes" here means uncommitted changes, not local commits.
git reset --hardaffects the former, not the latter. If you want to fully reset to the remote's state,git reset --hard origin/<branch>- but often and in this case, those two commits you're ahead of origin by are work you did, not something you want to throw away.– CascabelCommented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:23 -
3So this is the same thing as destroying the local repository and re-downloading, right? I just want to be able to force the pull and overwrite changes for convenience. 99% of the time I get this error message when I've accidentally messed something up locally and just want to start over from the repo.– sudoCommented Dec 15, 2013 at 19:26
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2@adelriosantiago Artur's answer also has a reset --hard. It throws away exactly the same as the part of this answer. And yes, throwing things away is potentially dangerous, but it's what the OP asked to do. Their alternative was deleting the directory and re-cloning. They wanted to throw things away. If you want to, say, commit to a local branch and also separately fetch origin's master, great, that's a more common thing to want to do - it's just not what this question was about.– CascabelCommented Oct 3, 2017 at 18:41
For me the following worked:
(1) First fetch all changes:
$ git fetch --all
(2) Then reset the master:
$ git reset --hard origin/master
Note - For users of github, "master" was replaced with "main" in October 2020. For projects created since then you may need to use "main" instead, like:
$ git reset --hard origin/main
(3) Pull/update:
$ git pull
answered Mar 23, 2015 at 8:42
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8this even works when u have committed ur local changes, but still u want to revert– agsachinCommented Nov 2, 2016 at 11:05
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5@Marco Servetto: You first fetch all your git changes, but don't apply them yet. Then you reset the master to the last state (updated). If you skip the first step, you will revert changes to the old master (local). From my experience, the way I described it, never causes problems. All other attempts do at the end. Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 7:25
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1This worked for me, I wanted to ignore all my local changes including recovering deleted files– NeriCommented Jul 30, 2018 at 17:02
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1
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2I just did steps 1 and 2, and it seemed sufficient. What is the purpose of step 3? Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 16:03
You just want a command which gives exactly the same result as rm -rf local_repo && git clone remote_url, right? I also want this feature. I wonder why git does not provide such a command (such as git reclone or git sync), neither does svn provide such a command (such as svn recheckout or svn sync).
Try the following command:
git reset --hard origin/master
git clean -fxd
git pull
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That's what really works, even when you already have local commits that you want to remove. Commented May 11, 2018 at 17:09
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10Warning guys!!
git clean -fxdremoves files from.gitignorealso. Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 5:44 -
@RameshNavi Sure. This is exactly what is wanted. What is wanted is to have a faster way to re-clone it, i.e. to delete the entire local repo and then clone it.– VictorCommented Nov 18, 2019 at 13:30
The command bellow wont work always. If you do just:
$ git checkout thebranch
Already on 'thebranch'
Your branch and 'origin/thebranch' have diverged,
and have 23 and 7 different commits each, respectively.
$ git reset --hard
HEAD is now at b05f611 Here the commit message bla, bla
$ git pull
Auto-merging thefile1.c
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in thefile1.c
Auto-merging README.md
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in README.md
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
and so on...
To really start over, downloading thebranch and overwriting all your local changes, just do:
$ git checkout thebranch
$ git reset --hard origin/thebranch
This will work just fine.
$ git checkout thebranch
Already on 'thebranch'
Your branch and 'origin/thebranch' have diverged,
and have 23 and 7 different commits each, respectively.
$ git reset --hard origin/thebranch
HEAD is now at 7639058 Here commit message again...
$ git status
# On branch thebranch
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
$ git checkout thebranch
Already on 'thebranch'
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5YES. This is what I needed for an ultimate "don't give an F about what's local" approach. Thanks. :)– AdambeanCommented Oct 19, 2016 at 10:35
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To completely remove all the local changes, you need the command
git clean -fxd– VictorCommented Mar 5, 2021 at 2:16 -
Just be careful with
git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree, as this affects "untracked files", not exactly what OP asked for. But ok, good to be here in the comment, just in case someone wants to also remove untracked files.– DrBecoCommented Mar 7, 2021 at 1:46
shortest way to do it is:
git pull --rebase --autostash
this worked for me
git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/master
git pull origin master
with the accepted answer I get conflict errors
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That's very similar to the 2015 answer of Artur Barseghyan... but I'd still like to know what the purpose of the 3rd command is: the working files have changed after the 2nd command, and the 3rd command says "Already up to date" Commented Feb 24, 2020 at 19:14
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that is the only combination that worked on my environment, maybe you are seeing a different thing, for me, I needed the three commands Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 20:10
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Interesting. Might be a version thing. I'm on git 2.7.4. But I've also just seen a new comment from Artur Barseghyan: "Otherwise you might find yourself working on accidentally outdated master." Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 20:25
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maybe, but the only thing I can say is "this worked for me when no other solution did", so it might help others Commented Feb 26, 2020 at 0:49
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To completely remove all the local changes, you need the command
git clean -fxd– VictorCommented Mar 5, 2021 at 2:16
I usually do:
git checkout .
git pull
In the project's root folder.
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3@UjjwalRoy From the comment on the question, I believe that was the intention. But when I want to save local changes I use
git add -Agit stashCommented Jul 14, 2020 at 14:20
git fetch --all && git reset --hard origin/master
If you are on a branch, and want to discard any local changes on the branch and pull the remote branch, but encounter
Your branch and 'origin/<branch_name>' have diverged,
it can be resolved while staying on the branch by:
git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/<branch_name>
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this worked, what I like in this answer his - In" git reset --hard origin/<branch_name>" . Branch name varies so we need to enter the branch name we want to reflect Commented Apr 19, 2023 at 18:32
Look at git stash to put all of your local changes into a "stash file" and revert to the last commit. At that point, you can apply your stashed changes, or discard them.
answered Nov 11, 2010 at 17:23
If you are on Linux:
git fetch
for file in `git diff origin/master..HEAD --name-only`; do rm -f "$file"; done
git pull
The for loop will delete all tracked files which are changed in the local repo, so git pull will work without any problems.
The nicest thing about this is that only the tracked files will be overwritten by the files in the repo, all other files will be left untouched.
answered Nov 5, 2012 at 23:40
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I think you meant "tracked files" which is exactly what I need, thanks.– AliCommented Oct 24, 2013 at 16:16
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great solution, it worked for me to overwrite a sqlite DB only if there are changes from the repo and keep the locally changed version on the prototype deploy.. thanks!– RobertoCommented Nov 18, 2022 at 14:41
It's late but someone can find this useful.(Worked for me)
- git restore < fileName> or git restore .
- git pull
This will fetch the current branch and attempt to do a fast forward to master:
git fetch && git merge --ff-only origin/master
.gitignore
"Adding unwanted files to .gitignore works as long as you have not initially committed them to any branch. "
Also you can run:
git update-index --assume-unchanged filename
https://chamindac.blogspot.com/2017/07/ignoring-visual-studio-2017-created.html
Also, it's possible to keep changes from local commits and push them as a new commit. I use these steps when I have a mess in my local commits.
- git reset --soft origin/main
- git stash
- git pull --rebase
- git stash pop
git pull will give error if we change any thing in any files in our local system, So we need to git stash
git pull I got the message - error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge: Please commit your changes or stash them before you merge. Aborting
git stash Saved working directory and index state WIP on ....
git pull Updating... 10 files changed, 291 insertions(+), 169 deletions(-)
rm -rf local_repo && git clone remote_url.