.gitignore is ignored by Git

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My .gitignore file seems to be being ignored by Git - could the .gitignore file be corrupt? Which file format, locale or culture does Git expect?

My .gitignore:

# This is a comment
debug.log
nbproject/

Output from git status:

# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#       debug.log
#       nbproject/
nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)

I would like debug.log and nbproject/ not to appear in the untracked files list.

Where should I start looking to fix this?

Haler answered 12/7, 2012 at 12:9 Comment(12)

Make sure your .gitignore file uses ANSI or UTF-8 encoding. If it uses something else like Unicode BOM, it's possible that Git can't read the file. – Chit 14/12, 2017 at 12:39

Possible duplicate of How to make Git "forget" about a file that was tracked but is now in .gitignore? – Bluegreen 8/3, 2018 at 9:1

@Chit this was exactly the problem on my machine (Windows). I has used echo "file" > .gitignore in PowerShell, the file had a UCS-2 encoding! – Kaylee 5/4, 2018 at 14:52

git rm --cached debug.log nbproject/ – Uranalysis 29/5, 2018 at 9:40

Why the first comment here is not an answer is beyond me – Sawhorse 2/7, 2018 at 20:53

@Sawhorse Amusingly, that was the answer to my question (I'm the op), although it is an answer much further down. – Haler 10/7, 2018 at 7:25

@MattParkins Ah I see it now, it still surprises me that such a simple and to the point answer is buried as a comment or that the actual accepted one is down there. Thanks! – Sawhorse 10/7, 2018 at 22:8

If the files are indeed in the Untracked files list, make sure to chek out for trailing spaces (@Shermy answer) – Mcmahan 14/9, 2019 at 20:29

don't start ur folder names with /folder. That messed me up. Should have been folder/. – Joses 13/10, 2019 at 17:10

@GayanWeerakutti put simply, does that code let go of all historical baggage of code changes tracked by git for debug.log, nbproject/ as well as sets the resp. files to be untracked by git ? 🤔 – Ariella 2/7, 2022 at 7:3

@Ariella It only remove the file from the working directory and add that removal into the index. The history is preserved. – Uranalysis 2/8, 2022 at 18:10

@Kaylee That's what I did too. Git For Windows comes with a "touch" program which will create it properly. touch .gitignore – Vicereine 1/11, 2023 at 9:13

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Fixed. OK, I created the .gitignore file in Notepad on Windows and it wasn't working. When I viewed the .gitignore file on Linux it looked like organised gibberish - perhaps Notepad had written out Unicode rather than ASCII or whatever 8-bit is.

So I rewrote the file on my Linux box, and when I pulled it back into Windows it works fine! Hurrah!

Haler answered 12/7, 2012 at 12:30 Comment(18)

In Notepad simply choose the encoding "ANSI" in the "Save As" dialog. Or better yet, get a proper text editor - after all you're a programmer :) ... I can recommend "Programmer's Notepad", others prefer Notepad++ and there are literally hundreds more out there. – Portable 12/7, 2012 at 12:41

hehe, yep, I should have created it in netbeans (which I was using at the time), eclipse or visual studio. I just called it from the commandline thinking it wouldn't make a difference. – Haler 12/7, 2012 at 13:39

We need to use linux/unix like relative path and not the windows path( i.e to use "/" instead of "\") even if you are using windows OS and save it in ANSI as mentioned in previous comment. – Englert 11/7, 2013 at 9:32

My problem was similar - my .gitignore was using UTF8 with a BOM. Just saved it as UTF8 without a BOM and it magically started working. – Scrunch 26/3, 2014 at 21:7

This was my problem. But even if the file looks ok on Linux, if you changed it on Windows and it is being ignore, try do delete it and type it again on Linux. Worked for me. – Dowland 16/6, 2015 at 20:30

Best way for me is to just copy paste working .gitignore and edit that. Thank you. – Scauper 7/11, 2015 at 15:38

This was my problem as well. I had created the .gitignore file with "echo dirName > .gitignore" because Windows makes it such a pain to create files that start with ".". The encoding of the file created this way was unreadable by git, and it interpreted it as a binary file instead. Clicked "Encoding --> UTF-8" in Notepad++, save, done. – Cermet 7/9, 2016 at 15:43

Had the same problem as @Cermet in powershell - the file is by default saved as UTF16. – Resourceful 8/9, 2016 at 10:19

Trailing spaces can get you there, too :) – Heigl 17/11, 2016 at 23:28

I ran into this issue as well, copy/pasting the contents of the VS .gitignore file from Chrome was my problem. I should have directly saved the file somehow else. – Hose 6/3, 2017 at 17:4

I had the same problem as Laura as well. Arghhhh Windows. -_- – Bor 13/9, 2017 at 8:45

Going from a bash to occasionally using powershell - this command "echo someline >somefile" writes out UTF16. What the? – Pilatus 28/2, 2018 at 22:54

For those of you using Notepad++, the option to select is Encoding > Encode in ANSI. – Argentina 1/3, 2018 at 17:0

Leave a comment if you're going to downvote the answer, (this one worked for me) – Haler 21/5, 2018 at 11:55

The common source of problem - line separators. They are two bytes on windows (0d 0a) and one byte in unix (0a). When you move windows file to unix 0d bytes will treat as significant on end of lines. Example: write bash script on windows with shebang [#!/usr/bin/env python3] and try to move to unix, [chmod +x] and run - there will be binary name [python3\x0d] and shell will fail. – Fidge 4/4, 2020 at 11:9

@Argentina Better encode as UTF8 NO BOM. – Tuttle 24/7, 2023 at 17:3

@Portable I do not approve on hating the Notepad++. In my opinion it is the best text editor for Windows. Period. Mostly because if you don't like something about it, you can fix it yourself. – Tuttle 24/7, 2023 at 17:5

@Tuttle good for you. And now perhaps look up the difference (😜) between Notepad, a program that ships with Windows and -- while it has improved over the recent years -- can hardly be called a programmer's editor, and Notepad++ an excellent (small, fast, feature-rich) editor sharing the first few letters. At no point did I hate Notepad++ or discourage its use or even "spread" hate about it. While at the time of my comment I used PN2, I now prefer Notepad++ on systems where I can't have VSCodium or SublimeText. You're a bit late to the party, too ... – Portable 24/7, 2023 at 20:59

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Even if you haven't tracked the files so far, Git seems to be able to "know" about them even after you add them to .gitignore.

WARNING: First commit or stash your current changes, or you will lose them.

Then run the following commands from the top folder of your Git repository:

git rm -r --cached .
git add .
git commit -m "fixed untracked files"

Incisure answered 12/7, 2012 at 12:20 Comment(29)

i got a "Unknown option: -rm" when trying to run "git -rm -r --cached" – Prase 29/8, 2012 at 4:1

I got "usage: git rm [options] [--] <file>..." printed when I tried "git rm -r --cached". If it matters, I'm using Git from within PowerShell after clicking "Tools->Open a shell here" in GitHub for Windows. – Jeanninejeans 17/10, 2012 at 13:17

on Windows: git rm . -r --cached and git add . – Psychometrics 13/11, 2012 at 2:8

It should be: git rm -r --cached . and git add . The dot is important! It specifies to apply this to all files under the current directory, (so do this when in the top level git directory). I would edit this, but don't have enough reputation.... :) – Piddle 4/6, 2013 at 14:49

Be aware to commit all your changes before, otherwise you will lose control on all the changed files!! – Caoutchouc 27/11, 2013 at 14:33

The first 3 commenters seem to have missed the dot in the end. This means every file. "git -rm -r --cached ." <-- notice the dot. – Rhizopod 2/5, 2014 at 15:29

If rm this file, what happen with this file in server when I push it to server ? – Suitor 7/7, 2014 at 8:29

If anyone is wondering, you can do this for certain files by replacing the . in this answer with the path name in both the rm and add commands. – Albacore 18/11, 2014 at 2:35

Works and is safe to push to server. It just fixes gitignore. – Swiss 2/12, 2014 at 20:55

I'm not sure about the last step, just keep doing git rm and git add, eventually somehow it'll just work, but don't do commit, kinda of scary. – Degas 3/3, 2015 at 23:15

Can't this inadvertently change the Unix file permissions? – Morten 20/3, 2015 at 20:50

If you don't want to commit, a workaround is to put your changes onto the shelf: "git stash". Run the above commands. and run "git stash pop" – Scarce 22/4, 2015 at 10:59

At least on windows this commands lead to all files beeing committed (including files listet in .gitignore). So in my case it's not working/wrong. – Shawnshawna 27/11, 2015 at 11:39

This just solved my issue without wasting a bunch of hours! This answer should be accepted as the solution too. – Motoring 27/1, 2016 at 7:1

TIL that copy pasting multiple lines into GIT bash, immediately executes all lines except the last one. – Saidee 1/2, 2016 at 14:54

The suggested solution added the files I intended to ignore - the exact opposite of what I wanted... – Kp 3/3, 2016 at 10:31

git commit -m "fixed untracked files" . There should be a dot at last. – Discussant 26/5, 2017 at 5:42

I would recommend use list of filenames instead . – Oakman 4/1, 2018 at 4:14

By George it actually worked. Now why does this issue even come up in the first place? seems like the default behavior should be to not let this happen... – Whitacre 19/3, 2018 at 20:7

If this affects such an enormous number of git users, this could be considered a bug or a feature request for intuitiveness. By the way, is this issue reproduced on machines other than Windows? Git installer for Windows has a checkbox to disable caching and it is enabled by default. – Hypocaust 13/9, 2018 at 10:42

faced this issue in ubuntu 16.04. now working perfect – Keifer 12/10, 2018 at 8:27

This removed the .gitignore file from my project leaving me unable to add it back in, no idea why - please be careful with these commands. – Nichy 22/10, 2018 at 15:22

This solution does not work! It's ridiculous how often this issue comes up and how difficult it is to address, even if one is an experienced git user. – Scathe 3/4, 2019 at 17:6

really nice , but i dont understand what is the meaning of first line git commit -m "fixed untracked files" – Albaugh 13/5, 2019 at 11:25

It's 2019, and this is still an issue, reproduced on ma mac. Fixed the issue and made me feel all warm inside. Tickled me just right. – Universality 17/10, 2019 at 12:12

@Scathe you're right as it's imperative to be specific as to what files you're untracking eg. git rm -r --cached debug.log nbproject , while git rm -r --cached . would simple untrack all files in the project ⚠️ – Ariella 2/7, 2022 at 6:42

@hosamhemaily the line is a commit command which explains the file/sub-folders that were unindexed from history by git rm -r --chached <file-name>. 👉️ to understand git add . && git commit – Ariella 2/7, 2022 at 6:53

Before doin that just type !.gitignore in your gitignore file. – Waldemar 25/8, 2022 at 9:48

The answer is correct in that if a folder or file exists in the repo then the changes will not be ignored by .gitignore. If you want to fix it without using git commands (like if you use Github Desktop) then cut and paste the file/folder out of your local directory. push it, then add them back in. That worked for me. – Spilt 24/11, 2022 at 0:6

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If it seems like Git isn't noticing the changes you made to your .gitignore file, you might want to check the following points:

There might be a global .gitignore file that might interfere with your local one

When you add something into a .gitignore file, try this:

  git add [uncommitted changes you want to keep] && git commit
  git rm -r --cached .
  git add .
  git commit -m "fixed untracked files"

If you remove something from a .gitignore file, and the above steps maybe don't work, if you found the above steps are not working, try this:

  git add -f [files you want to track again]
  git commit -m "Refresh removing files from .gitignore file."

  // For example, if you want the .java type file to be tracked again,
  // The command should be:
  //     git add -f *.java

Podite answered 3/9, 2015 at 13:54 Comment(6)

Perhaps could you edit @AlinHuruba 's answer to add your step 3 ? – Moulmein 4/7, 2016 at 9:32

@Moulmein Thank you for your advice,I didn't find AlinHuruba's answer,I don't known what's the difference,so please tell me directly. – Podite 23/10, 2017 at 1:42

The step 3 is what I needed. Most of the answer just tell how to remove the file which we want to untrack. Thanks for the opposite point of view. – Inextricable 1/11, 2017 at 4:11

Thanks @Podite for the reply. Usually it works for me too but I am having issues within a latex proj, with the main .pdf, which I don't need to commit, as I am working remotely on overleaf. I also checked for empty spaces in the .gitignore ... do you have an idea what's going on? -- maybe you have any idea? (not sure if I should post it as another question) -- Thanks – Excruciating 24/10, 2018 at 9:38

@Excruciating .pdf file is one kind of large file for git,and you must pay attention to the file path and directory path. – Podite 26/10, 2018 at 1:39

the file is 334 kb and the path seems correct ...plus, I am basically using the same .gitignore for other proj., where git is able to ignore the mail .pdf ...very weird – Excruciating 26/10, 2018 at 7:32