Renaming and removing files

So far we have only added and changed files in our version controlled working directory, and git was clever enough to work out what it needed to do. However, git does not know how to automatically work out when you have renamed or removed files.

Renaming files

To rename a file, you have to use git mv. We are going to rename the file something.md to background.md. To do this, type

git mv something.md background.md

If you now type ls you should see that something.md has been renamed (moved) to background.md.

Now, git status should show something like

On branch main
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
    renamed:    something.md -> background.md

To commit this change, use git commit -a as normal, remembering to add a suitable commit message, e.g.

Have renamed something.md to background.md to better reflect
the contents of the file

# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# On branch main
# Changes to be committed:
#       renamed:    something.md -> background.md
#

A quick check of git status should then show that your working directory is clean.

Removing files

To remove a file use git rm. To remove background.md we just need to type;

git rm background.md

If you now type ls you should see that background.md has been removed.

Now git status should show something like

On branch main
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
    deleted:    background.md

Note that this has removed the file from the working directory. The file will still exist in old versions stored in the repository. We can restore this file using;

git checkout main background.md

This is the real power of using version control. It is very difficult to actually lose files or accidentally delete data. As long as you have saved a snapshot version into the repository, then you will always be able to restore the data.

Indeed, git even tries to prevent you from losing data that is not saved to the repository. The command git rm FILE will only work if FILE is tracked by git and has no changes compared to the last version saved in the repository. To force removal of a file in this case, you need to use git rm -f FILE, where the flag -f means “force”.