To untrack a file that has been committed, what you do is adding a new ignoring rule and removing the file in a commit.
Below is a full example of ignoring /assets/my-style.css
.
Step 1: add below content to .gitignore
file to add an ignore rule.
/assets/my-style.css
Note: See ignoring files for how to create your
.gitignore
file and write ignore rules.
Step 2: remove it from repository and commit the changes .
# Stage .gitignore
$ git add .gitignore
# Remove my-style.css file from staging area, my-style.css
# in working directory is left alone.
# --cached, only apply to staging area
$ git rm --cached -- assets/css/my-style.css
# Commit them
$ git commit
Thus, my-style.css
will not be tracked any more. Be aware that it still remains in previous history.
To stop tracking a directory is similar, just replace above file with a folder in .gitignore
file and git rm
command.