Undo .gitignore changes

Question

I previously ignored a folder, but now I would like to ignore its content only: How do I remove/modify some entries from my .gitignore file so that git will track them again? I tried updating the gitignore file and adding the folder with git add -f <folder-name>, but it didn't work.

Thank you for your help

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 17 '21 at 12:22

What do you mean by ignoring its content only, If you want to track an empty directory?

there is way to make a directory stay (almost) empty (in the repository) is to create a .gitignore file inside that directory that contains these four lines:

# Ignore everything in this directory
*
# Except this file
!.gitignore

Kavitha Karunakaran · Answer 2 · 2021-02-17T12:30:49.353

2

Let us say you have one folder named target under the root folder that you added into your .gitignore file. The folder structure is similar to the one below:

-project root
  |- src
       |-- your src files here
  |- target
       |- file1
       |- file2
  |-.gitignore

I assume you want to undo git ignore and selectively ignore file inside the directory that you added to ignore list earlier. Let's suppose you want to add file 1 only from the directory structure above onto git ignore. In this case, edit the .gitignore file to remove the /target/ folder pattern and add a new . gitignore inside the target folder with file1 as content. It should automatically pick up only file2 for tracking.

-project root
  |- src
       |-- your src files here
  |- target
       |- file1
       |- file2
       |- .gitignore - add file1 here
  |-.gitignore - remove /target/ from here

edited Feb 17 '21 at 12:30

answered Feb 17 '21 at 12:24

Kavitha Karunakaran

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Thank you for your detailed answer, however I've accepted Muhammad Taseen's one since it is more "straight forward" in relation to my problem! – joyfantastic Feb 17 '21 at 12:54
Glad to see that you found it useful. You are right. The accepted answer is a more straightforward approach and I have upvoted it too to express my solidarity:) – Kavitha Karunakaran Feb 17 '21 at 14:11
1

Thank you for you both, Kavitha your answer is pretty detailed, I've upvoted your answer :) – Muhammad Taseen Feb 18 '21 at 00:16

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 17 '21 at 12:12

1

git doesn't track folders, ignoring a folder or ignoring its contents is the same thing when it comes to git.

That said, it should be sufficient to remove the folder-entry from .gitignore to start track things in that folder.

answered Feb 17 '21 at 12:12

Andreas Wederbrand

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Undo .gitignore changes

3 Answers3