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Sidharth R

How to Exclude Files When Using git add

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Problem

Sometimes you want to add all files to git except some files or folders.

Solution

You can use the :(exclude) syntax to exclude files or folders from the git add command. The :(exclude) pathspec modifier is a special syntax that allows you to exclude files or folders. A pathspec is a way to specify files in Git. It is a string that describes a set of files. You can use wildcards to match multiple files. For example, *.html matches all html files. **/*.html matches all html files in all subfolders.

Instead of :(exclude) you can use the shorthand :! or :^ syntax. For example, :!*.html or :^*.html will exclude all html files.

Exclude a single file

For example, to add all files except the abc.txt file, you can use the following command:

git add --all -- ':(exclude)file/path/for/abc.txt'

# or using the shorthand syntax:
git add --all -- ':!file/path/for/abc.txt'

Note: Don’t forget to add a space between the -- and the :(exclude) syntax.

Note: The --all flag is used to add all files. If you don’t use the --all flag, then you can use the . to add all files in the current directory.

Exclude multiple files

For example, to add all files except the abc.txt and xyz.txt files, you can use the following command:

git add --all -- ':(exclude)file/path/for/abc.txt' ':(exclude)file/path/for/xyz.txt'

# or using the shorthand syntax
git add --all -- ':!file/path/for/abc.txt' ':!file/path/for/xyz.txt'

Exclude files of a certain type

For example, to add all files except the html files (in the current directory), you can use the following command:

git add --all -- ':(exclude)*.html'

# or using the shorthand syntax
git add --all -- ':!*.html'

Exclude a folder

git add --all -- ':(exclude)path/to/exclude'
git add --all -- ':(exclude)path/to/exclude1' ':(exclude)path/to/exclude2'
git add --all -- ':(exclude)path/to/exclude1' ':(exclude)path/to/exclude2' ':(exclude)path/to/exclude3'

Exclude files of a certain type in a folder

For example, to add all files except the html files in the static folder, you can use the following command:

git add --all -- ':(exclude)static/*.html'

Exclude files of a certain type in a folder and its subfolders

For example, to add all files except the html files in the static folder and its subfolders, you can use the following command:

git add --all -- ':(exclude)static/**/*.html'

Reference