How can I delete a file from a Git repository?

Question

I have added a file named \"file1.txt\" to a Git repository. After that, I committed it, added a couple of directories called dir1 and dir2

Answer 1

Note: if you want to delete file only from git use below:

git rm --cached file1.txt

If you want to delete also from hard disk:

git rm file1.txt

If you want to remove a folder(the folder may contain few files) so, you should remove using recursive command, as below:

git rm -r foldername

If you want to remove a folder inside another folder

git rm -r parentFolder/childFolder

Then, you can commit and push as usual. However, if you want to recover deleted folder, you can follow this: recover deleted files from git is possible.

From doc:

git rm [-f | --force] [-n] [-r] [--cached] [--ignore-unmatch] [--quiet] [--] …​

OPTIONS

…​

Files to remove. Fileglobs (e.g. *.c) can be given to remove all matching files. If you want Git to expand file glob characters, you

may need to shell-escape them. A leading directory name (e.g. dir to remove dir/file1 and dir/file2) can be given to remove all files in the directory, and recursively all sub-directories, but this requires the -r option to be explicitly given. -f --force

Override the up-to-date check.

-n --dry-run

Don’t actually remove any file(s). Instead, just show if they exist in the index and would otherwise be removed by the command.

-r

Allow recursive removal when a leading directory name is given.

--

This option can be used to separate command-line options from the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken for

command-line options). --cached

Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index. Working tree files, whether modified or not, will be left alone.

--ignore-unmatch

Exit with a zero status even if no files matched.

-q --quiet

git rm normally outputs one line (in the form of an rm command) for each file removed. This option suppresses that output.

Read more on official doc.