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This article discusses the necessary steps to stage deleted files in Git.

We know that the rm command can delete a file without removing it from the working directory. So, how do we stage the deleted files for commit?

Staging deleted files in Git

For a simpler context, let's simulate a situation where we need to stage a deleted file. To do this, we will navigate to our repository and delete one of the files.

We will run:

$ rm sample.php

Let's check our indexes:

$ git status

Newer Git versions allow us to stage deleted files using the git add command. Make sure you have Git 2 and newer.

You can check your version by running:

$ git version
git version 2.35.1.windows.2

We can continue to add files, as shown below:

$ git add sample.php

When checking our index, the sample.php file should be staged for submission. Let's check if this is the case.

Now the sample.php file we deleted is ready for submission.

In short, newer versions of Git allow us to stage deleted files for commit using git addthe command. Git treats it as a modified or added file.