Aborting a stash pop in Git

My use case: just tried popping onto the wrong branch and got conflicts. All I need is to undo the pop but keep it in the stash list so I can pop it out on the correct branch. I did this:

git reset HEAD --hard
git checkout my_correct_branch
git stash pop

Easy.

Simple one-liner

I have always used

git reset --merge

I can't remember it ever failing.

Ok, I think I have worked out "git stash unapply". It's more complex than git apply --reverse because you need reverse merging action in case there was any merging done by the git stash apply.

The reverse merge requires that all current changes be pushed into the index:

• git add -u

Then invert the merge-recursive that was done by git stash apply:

• git merge-recursive stash@{0}: -- $(git write-tree) stash@{0}^1

Now you will be left with just the non-stash changes. They will be in the index. You can use git reset to unstage your changes if you like.

Given that your original git stash apply failed I assume the reverse might also fail since some of the things it wants to undo did not get done.

Here's an example showing how the working copy (via git status) ends up clean again:

 $ git status
# On branch trunk
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
 $ git stash apply
Auto-merging foo.c
# On branch trunk
# Changed but not updated:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       modified:   foo.c
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
 $ git add -u
 $ git merge-recursive stash@{0}: -- $(git write-tree) stash@{0}^1
Auto-merging foo.c
 $ git status
# On branch trunk
nothing to commit (working directory clean)