Remove directory from remote repository after adding them to .gitignore

Question

I committed and pushed some directory to github. After that, I altered the .gitignore file adding a directory that should be ignored. Everything works fine, but the (now ignored) directory stays on github.

How do I delete that directory from github and the repository history?

Answer 1

The rules in your .gitignore file only apply to untracked files. Since the files under that directory were already committed in your repository, you have to unstage them, create a commit, and push that to GitHub:

git rm -r --cached some-directory
git commit -m 'Remove the now ignored directory "some-directory"'
git push origin master

You can't delete the file from your history without rewriting the history of your repository - you shouldn't do this if anyone else is working with your repository, or you're using it from multiple computers. If you still want to do that, you can use git filter-branch to rewrite the history - there is a helpful guide to that here.

Additionally, note the output from git rm -r --cached some-directory will be something like:

rm 'some-directory/product/cache/1/small_image/130x130/small_image.jpg'
rm 'some-directory/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/small_image.jpg'
rm 'some-directory/.htaccess'
rm 'some-directory/logo.jpg'

The rm is feedback from git about the repository; the files are still in the working directory.

Answer 2

I do this:

git rm --cached `git ls-files -i --exclude-from=.gitignore` 
git commit -m 'Removed all files that are in the .gitignore' 
git push origin master

Which will remove all the files/folders that are in your git ignore, saving you have to pick each one manually

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This seems to have stopped working for me, I now do:

 git rm -r --cached . 
 git add .
 git commit -m 'Removed all files that are in the .gitignore' 
 git push origin master

Answer 3

As per my Answer here: How to remove a directory from git repository?

To remove folder/directory only from git repository and not from the local try 3 simple steps.

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Steps to remove directory

git rm -r --cached FolderName
git commit -m "Removed folder from repository"
git push origin master

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Steps to ignore that folder in next commits

To ignore that folder from next commits make one file in root named .gitignore and put that folders name into it. You can put as many as you want

.gitignore file will be look like this

/FolderName

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Answer 4

Blundell's first answer didn't work for me. However it showed me the right way. I have done the same thing like this:

> for i in `git ls-files -i --exclude-from=.gitignore`; do git rm --cached $i; done
> git commit -m 'Removed all files that are in the .gitignore'
> git push origin master

I advise you to check the files to be deleted first by running the below statement:

git ls-files -i --exclude-from=.gitignore

I was using a default .gitignore file for visual studio and I noticed that it was removing all log and bin folders in the project which was not my intended action.

Answer 5

The answer from Blundell should work, but for some bizarre reason it didn't do with me. I had to pipe first the filenames outputted by the first command into a file and then loop through that file and delete that file one by one.

git ls-files -i --exclude-from=.gitignore > to_remove.txt
while read line; do `git rm -r --cached "$line"`; done < to_remove.txt
rm to_remove.txt
git commit -m 'Removed all files that are in the .gitignore' 
git push origin master

Answer 6

Note: This solution works only with Github Desktop GUI.

By using Github Desktop GUI it is very simple.

1. Move the folder onto another location (to out of the project folder) temporarily.

2. Edit your .gitignore file and remove the folder entry which would be remove master repository on the github page.

3. Commit and Sync the project folder.

4. Re-move the folder into the project folder

5. Re-edit .gitignore file.

That's all.

Answer 7

If you're working from PowerShell, try the following as a single command.

PS MyRepo> git filter-branch --force --index-filter
>> "git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch -r .\\\path\\\to\\\directory"
>> --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

Then, git push --force --all.

Documentation: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-filter-branch