Linux command to delete all files except .git folder?

Question

I want to delete all of the current directory\'s content except for the .git/ folder before I copy the new files into the branch.

Answer 1

for i in `ls | grep -v ".git"` ; do rm -rf $i; done; rm .gitignore;

the additional rm at the end will remove the special .gitignore. Take that off if you do need the file.