git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree
git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>...
GIT-CLEAN(1) Git Manual GIT-CLEAN(1)
NAME
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.
OPTIONS
-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.
-f, --force
If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to
false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless
given -f, -n or -i. Git will refuse to delete directories with .git
sub directory or file unless a second -f is given.
-i, --interactive
Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See
"Interactive mode" for details.
-n, --dry-run
Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
-q, --quiet
Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are
successfully removed.
-e <pattern>, --exclude=<pattern>
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.
-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.
INTERACTIVE MODE
When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the files and
directories to be cleaned, and goes into its interactive command loop.
The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a
prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends with a single >,
you can pick only one of the choices given and type return, like this:
*** Commands ***
1: clean 2: filter by pattern 3: select by numbers
4: ask each 5: quit 6: help
What now> 1
You also could say c or clean above as long as the choice is unique.
The main command loop has 6 subcommands.
clean
Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit.
filter by pattern
This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
"Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated
patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. E.g. "*.c
*.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from deletion. When
you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER (empty)
back to the main menu.
select by numbers
This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
"Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double
>> like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated
with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9"
to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a
range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to
choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say * to choose everything.
Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER
(empty) back to the main menu.
ask each
This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order
to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient
as the above two actions.
quit
This lets you quit without do cleaning.
help
Show brief usage of interactive git-clean.
SEE ALSO
gitignore(5)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.15.2 05/29/2018 GIT-CLEAN(1)