How do I remove a folder from source control with TortoiseSVN?
The TortoiseSVN menu has an Export option which will give you a copy of the folder detached from the repository. Alternatively, you can right-click + drag a folder and pick either "SVN Export to here" or "SVN Export all to here".
"Export all" is equivalent to selecting "Export unversioned files too" in the Export dialog, which will effectively clone the working copy without the .svn folders.
There is a dedicated item in the extended context menu:
- Hold the Shift key down and right click on the folder.
- Under the TortoiseSVN menu click on "Delete (keep local)"
Image cropped from TortoiseSVN's extended context menu page.
Delete (keep local) documentation blurb.
If you want to remove the folder from source control but keep it locally, the easiest way would be to
- create a backup of the folder (just copy it somewhere else)
- follow the instructions for deleting it
- restore the folder
- tell subversion to "Ignore" the folder
You should also delete the .svn directory that's kicking around in the folder that you're removing or you'll end up confusing svn/tortoise. You can also do an "Export" for step 1 which will remove any .svn directories for you (if you're doing this for a whole directory tree rather than a single directory, this is a lot more convenient than cleaning the folders out by hand).
The easiest way is described here: http://tortoisesvn.net/unversion.html
That article is a bit wordy and some of the methods didn't work for me (like dragging the folder onto itself - Windows 7 wouldn't allow it)).
Here's what, in the article worked for me:
Simple: when you right-click on a working copy and choose "Export..." from the context menu, a folder browse dialog is shown where you can choose the folder where you want the working copy exported to. If you now select the very same path that your working copy is on as the target (i.e., you're exporting the working copy onto itself), TortoiseSVN will remove all .svn folders of that working copy.