How do I revert all local changes in Git managed project to previous state?

To revert changes made to your working copy, do this:

git checkout .

Or equivalently, for git version >= 2.23:

git restore .

To revert changes made to the index (i.e., that you have added), do this. Warning this will reset all of your unpushed commits to master!:

git reset

To revert a change that you have committed:

git revert <commit 1> <commit 2>

To remove untracked files (e.g., new files, generated files):

git clean -f

Or untracked directories (e.g., new or automatically generated directories):

git clean -fd

Re-clone

GIT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
cd $GIT/..
rm -rf $GIT
git clone ...
  • ✅ Deletes local, non-pushed commits
  • ✅ Reverts changes you made to tracked files
  • ✅ Restores tracked files you deleted
  • ✅ Deletes files/dirs listed in .gitignore (like build files)
  • ✅ Deletes files/dirs that are not tracked and not in .gitignore
  • 😀 You won't forget this approach
  • 😔 Wastes bandwidth

Following are other commands I forget daily.

Clean and reset

git clean --force -d -x
git reset --hard
  • ❌ Deletes local, non-pushed commits
  • ✅ Reverts changes you made to tracked files
  • ✅ Restores tracked files you deleted
  • ✅ Deletes files/dirs listed in .gitignore (like build files)
  • ✅ Deletes files/dirs that are not tracked and not in .gitignore

Clean

git clean --force -d -x
  • ❌ Deletes local, non-pushed commits
  • ❌ Reverts changes you made to tracked files
  • ❌ Restores tracked files you deleted
  • ✅ Deletes files/dirs listed in .gitignore (like build files)
  • ✅ Deletes files/dirs that are not tracked and not in .gitignore

Reset

git reset --hard
  • ❌ Deletes local, non-pushed commits
  • ✅ Reverts changes you made to tracked files
  • ✅ Restores tracked files you deleted
  • ❌ Deletes files/dirs listed in .gitignore (like build files)
  • ❌ Deletes files/dirs that are not tracked and not in .gitignore

Notes

Test case for confirming all the above (use bash or sh):

mkdir project
cd project
git init
echo '*.built' > .gitignore
echo 'CODE' > a.sourceCode
mkdir b
echo 'CODE' > b/b.sourceCode
cp -r b c
git add .
git commit -m 'Initial checkin'
echo 'NEW FEATURE' >> a.sourceCode
cp a.sourceCode a.built
rm -rf c
echo 'CODE' > 'd.sourceCode'

See also

  • git revert to make new commits that undo prior commits
  • git checkout to go back in time to prior commits (may require running above commands first)
  • git stash same as git reset above, but you can undo it

Note: You may also want to run 

git clean -fd

as

git reset --hard

will not remove untracked files, where as git-clean will remove any files from the tracked root directory that are not under git tracking. WARNING - BE CAREFUL WITH THIS! It is helpful to run a dry-run with git-clean first, to see what it will delete.

This is also especially useful when you get the error message

~"performing this command will cause an un-tracked file to be overwritten"

Which can occur when doing several things, one being updating a working copy when you and your friend have both added a new file of the same name, but he's committed it into source control first, and you don't care about deleting your untracked copy.

In this situation, doing a dry run will also help show you a list of files that would be overwritten.

Tags:

Git

Git Checkout

Revert

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