git-clean

GIT-CLEAN(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-CLEAN(1)

NAME
       git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

SYNOPSIS
       git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>...

DESCRIPTION
       Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not
       under version control, starting from the current directory.

       Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option
       is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be
       useful to remove all build products.

       If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are
       affected.

OPTIONS
       -d
           Normally, when no <path> is specified, git clean will not recurse
           into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d
           to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are
           specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the
           specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories
           mentioned under --force) will be removed.

       -f, --force
           If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to
           false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless
           given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git
           repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second
           -f is given.

       -i, --interactive
           Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See
           "Interactive mode" for details.

       -n, --dry-run
           Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

       -q, --quiet
           Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are
           successfully removed.

       -e <pattern>, --exclude=<pattern>
           Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore
           rules (see gitignore(5)).

       -x
           Don't use the standard ignore rules (see gitignore(5)), but still
           use the ignore rules given with -e options from the command line.
           This allows removing all untracked files, including build products.
           This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git restore or git
           reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean
           build.

       -X
           Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild
           everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

INTERACTIVE MODE
       When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the files and
       directories to be cleaned, and goes into its interactive command loop.

       The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a
       prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends with a single >,
       you can pick only one of the choices given and type return, like this:

               *** Commands ***
                   1: clean                2: filter by pattern    3: select by numbers
                   4: ask each             5: quit                 6: help
               What now> 1

       You also could say c or clean above as long as the choice is unique.

       The main command loop has 6 subcommands.

       clean
           Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit.

       filter by pattern
           This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
           "Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated
           patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. E.g. "*.c
           *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from deletion. When
           you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER (empty)
           back to the main menu.

       select by numbers
           This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
           "Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double
           >> like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated
           with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9"
           to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a
           range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to
           choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say * to choose everything.
           Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER
           (empty) back to the main menu.

       ask each
           This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order
           to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient
           as the above two actions.

       quit
           This lets you quit without do cleaning.

       help
           Show brief usage of interactive git-clean.

SEE ALSO
       gitignore(5)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                      GIT-CLEAN(1)