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We can untrack the history created for a push or pull command; we can use the Git command untrack. Git has two options to track or untrack files or folders in its working directory.

We will see below the difference between tracked and untracked folders in Git.

The difference between tracked and untracked files in Git

Trace File:

The files that were added and committed to Git in the last commit, known to Git, are called tracked files. These files can be staged, modified, or unstaged.

Untracked files:

For untracked files, we can say that untracked files are the opposite of tracked files. All other files in the Git working folder are untracked.

These files were recently added and committed to Git and are ready to be staged in the Git repository without Git knowing about it.

To check if a file is tracked, we will use the command git status. When we work on various projects, sometimes we come across situations where unwanted files that are either automatically generated or created by mistake mess things up.

In this case, we can either .gitignore these files or delete them via git rm.

A better option is to use git rm as it will clean up our repository. This option can delete files or folders individually or in bulk as per our needs.

It can remove files or folders from both the index and the working directory. So, this article will explain how to untrack a folder in Git, which is very simple using some small commands.

Untracking a folder in Git

To untrack a folder in Git, we can perform the following steps.

• Commit all changes Before using the command git rm, we should make sure that all changes have been committed, including the .gitignore file.

• Removing a Folder from a Repository is explained below, when we want to untrack an entire folder, we will use the recursive option to get it done.

  git rm -r --cached <folder>
  

  • rmAbbreviation for the remove command.
  • -rWill be used for recursive deletion.
  • --cachedThe folder will be removed from the index. Don’t worry; our files are still there and safe.
  • <folder>will specify the folder we want to delete.

• Re-add the untrack folder We can re-add the folder with the following command.

  git add.
  

• Commit the last step, after which our repository will be cleaned up.

  git commit -m “.gitignore fix”
  

• By pushing changes to the remote, we effectively see the changes in the remote repository.