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

6       git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree
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SYNOPSIS

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

13       Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not
14       under version control, starting from the current directory.
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16       Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option
17       is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be
18       useful to remove all build products.
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20       If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are
21       affected.
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OPTIONS

24       -d
25           Normally, when no <path> is specified, git clean will not recurse
26           into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d
27           to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are
28           specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the
29           specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories
30           mentioned under --force) will be removed.
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32       -f, --force
33           If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to
34           false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless
35           given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git
36           repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second
37           -f is given.
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39       -i, --interactive
40           Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See
41           “Interactive mode” for details.
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43       -n, --dry-run
44           Don’t actually remove anything, just show what would be done.
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46       -q, --quiet
47           Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are
48           successfully removed.
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50       -e <pattern>, --exclude=<pattern>
51           Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore
52           rules (see gitignore(5)).
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54       -x
55           Don’t use the standard ignore rules (see gitignore(5)), but still
56           use the ignore rules given with -e options from the command line.
57           This allows removing all untracked files, including build products.
58           This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git restore or git
59           reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean
60           build.
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62       -X
63           Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild
64           everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.
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INTERACTIVE MODE

67       When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the files and
68       directories to be cleaned, and goes into its interactive command loop.
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70       The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a
71       prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends with a single >,
72       you can pick only one of the choices given and type return, like this:
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74               *** Commands ***
75                   1: clean                2: filter by pattern    3: select by numbers
76                   4: ask each             5: quit                 6: help
77               What now> 1
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80       You also could say c or clean above as long as the choice is unique.
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82       The main command loop has 6 subcommands.
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84       clean
85           Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit.
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87       filter by pattern
88           This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
89           "Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated
90           patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. E.g. "*.c
91           *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from deletion. When
92           you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER (empty)
93           back to the main menu.
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95       select by numbers
96           This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
97           "Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double
98           >> like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated
99           with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9"
100           to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a
101           range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to
102           choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say * to choose everything.
103           Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER
104           (empty) back to the main menu.
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106       ask each
107           This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order
108           to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient
109           as the above two actions.
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111       quit
112           This lets you quit without do cleaning.
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114       help
115           Show brief usage of interactive git-clean.
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SEE ALSO

118       gitignore(5)
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GIT

121       Part of the git(1) suite
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125Git 2.24.1                        12/10/2019                      GIT-CLEAN(1)