How do I pull a missing file back into my branch?

Question

I have cloned a Git project into a local Git repository. Then I have done something nasty to one of the files and in that panic I deleted file physically from the drive (rm style.css) and also removed it from Git (git rm style.css).

I want to get the original style.css file back from origin to my development branch. Unfortunately my Git thinks it is up-to-date and won't do anything.

cd ~/project.me
git status

# On branch dev
nothing to commit (working directory clean)

git pull origin dev

Password for 'https://someone@github.com':
From https://github.com/somewhere/project.me
* branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.

What do I need to do to tell git that I want to download original style.css file back into my dev branch?

if you want to restore but you are on a specific commit or branch check out this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16803904/git-pull-doesnt-actually-restore-my-missing-files-from-remote — Charlie Parker, Sep 16 '22 at 19:40
fyi sometimes the files are not fully updated for some mysterious reason. I found out that going to the root of the git project and running `git checkout .` fixed that issues. — Charlie Parker, Sep 16 '22 at 20:30

score 84 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 14 '17 at 15:08

84

If you want to restore all the missing files from the local repository

git checkout .

Warning: This method also restores all changed files and drops all the changes

edited Aug 14 '17 at 15:08

aleskva

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answered Dec 24 '15 at 00:45

neoneye

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did not help in restoring missing files which are in the remote/master but not local – vsync Jan 23 '17 at 09:26
4

@vsync It can, but you have to run git fetch before – aleskva Aug 28 '17 at 09:53
Restored local copies of remote files successfully. This is the easiest and best solution. – Akito May 25 '20 at 13:21

score 83 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 29 '21 at 20:31

83

Use git checkout. In your case:

git checkout origin/master style.css

This command will update the requested file from the given branch (here the remote branch origin/master).

edited Aug 29 '21 at 20:31

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 14 '12 at 16:26

CJlano

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Thanks - this helped me too. If you have lots of files to restore (as I did) you can use: `git diff --name-status | sed -n '/^D/ s/^D\s*//gp' | xargs git checkout origin/master` which will re-checkout all the deleted files. – spikyjt Jan 31 '14 at 10:37
your answer is not general enough to help anyone. Perhaps make it more useful to everyone besides the OP? – Charlie Parker Jan 25 '22 at 19:22

score 13 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 29 '21 at 20:32

13

Go to the location of file style.css (may be app/css/) using the console. Otherwise there will be pathspec error.

Then execute:

git checkout origin/master style.css

edited Aug 29 '21 at 20:32

Peter Mortensen

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answered Dec 25 '14 at 07:17

prime

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score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 29 '21 at 20:36

1

I intentionally deleted some files from a clone --depth 1.

This brought the main files, and submodule ones, back:

git checkout . -f && git submodule update --checkout -f

edited Aug 29 '21 at 20:36

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 14 '18 at 23:41

noabody

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How do I pull a missing file back into my branch?

4 Answers4

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