Git – Remove untracked files matching a pattern

Solution

$ git clean [-n] -f <path>...

Example

Run:

$ git clean -n -f *.json

to remove all untracked json files.

Important note

Always use -n or --dry-run before running the command.

Explanation

• git clean – Remove untracked files from the working tree.
• -n or --dry-run – Show the list of files that would be removed without actually removing.
• -f or --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 or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second -f is given.

Other options:

• -d – Normally, when no <path> is specified, git clean will not recurse into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories mentioned under --force) will be removed.
• -i or --interactive – Show what would be done and clean files interactively.
• -e or --exclude – Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore rules.