I have deleted all the contents inside a folder and the folder is empty. I still had a copy in my remote repo. But when I did a git pull
it didn't put back the deleted files isn't is supposed to do that?
So I did some research and saw that you can revert a file by doing git checkout <revision> -- <name of file>
But that only works on files.
How can I retrieve all the files inside the directory?
git status
will give you a hint about what command(s) to run
Everything you can do with a file, you can do with a folder too.
Also note Find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository
Files are deleted from working tree but not committed yet:
If you have not yet indexed (git add
) your changes you can revert content of a directory:
git checkout -- path/to/folder
If the deletion is already indexed, you should reset that first:
git reset -- path/to/folder
git checkout -- path/to/folder
Restore the full working tree (not a single folder), but lose all uncommitted changes
git reset --hard HEAD
When files are deleted in some commit in the past:
Find the last commit that affected the given path. As the file isn't in the HEAD commit, this commit must have deleted it.
git rev-list -n 1 HEAD -- <file_path>
Then checkout the version at the commit before, using the caret (^
) symbol:
git checkout <deleting_commit>^ -- <file_path>
Restore the full working tree from a distant commit
git reset --hard <revision>
You can restore files or folder with git restore.
git restore --source master~1 "PATH_IN_YOUR_REPO"
Here, master~1 reverts your folder to "1" revision back from your master branch.
Source: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-restore
git restore --source=HEAD~2 "Path_To_Restore"
. BTW it could a relative path.
If you have not yet commited your changes you can revert content or a directory:
git checkout -- removed_directory
If you want to revert all changes do:
git reset --hard HEAD
git checkout -- removed_directory
does not work
git checkout -- removed_directory
worked for me, but I've created this directory before (by checkout
one of files in that directory). After creation all files were restored in folder by this command.
The only thing that worked for me was to checkout the repo in another folder. Assume the current repo is in /home/me/current
.
I then did
git clone /home/me/current /home/me/temp
This make a separate clone of the repo in /home/me/temp
I can now go to /home/me/temp
and do whatever I want. For example
git reset --hard commit-hash-before-delete
Now I can copy the deleted file folder back
cp -r /home/me/temp/some/deleted/folder /home/me/current/some/deleted/folder
And delete the temp folder
rm -rf /home/me/temp
The examples of
git checkout -- some/deleted/folder
git checkout -- some/deleted/folder/*
DO NOT WORK
$ git checkout -- some/deleted/folder/*
zsh: no matches found: some/deleted/folder/*
$ git checkout -- some/deleted/folder
error: pathspec 'some/deleted/folder' did not match any file(s) known to git.
Other examples like
git reset --hard HEAD
are destructive beyond just the deleted files. Any other changes will also be lost.
Similarly
git reset --hard some-commit
will lose any commits after some-commit
As of git 2.24.0, there's an experimental new git command: git restore
git restore --staged some/deleted/folder
If you don't specify a specific file you should be able to pull the full contents of a specific commit. Like: git checkout 264794319e9695ba843cd6
(assuming that hash has all your files at the right state).
The reason pull
isn't restoring files is that git sees your deletions as the more recent change, applying that on top of whatever you're pulling.
(I'd recommend experimenting in a new branch.)
If you are just looking to recover a deleted folder and you have other commits after the deletion, then you can also just goto your project on github.com.
From github.com, go you to your last commit that has your folder. You should see the commit message and to the right there's a button labeled "Browse Files". Clicking this will take you to all the files from that stage of the commit.
From there you can clone the code or just download the code as a zip.
For me I temporarily deleted a folder due to an unrelated issue. Instead of trying to restore it from a backup, I just ran git restore folder/
and it restored it to what the branch had originally.
If you have to Recover Without Git Command Then Follow This
If You have Github Desktop It will make things easy
If not then install and sign in
Go to File Clone repository Select Repository your Repo Click on History
https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mqu9M.png
Right Click on Commit that used to delete Folder/File
https://i.stack.imgur.com/30kdw.png
Select Revert changes in commit option Now Just Click on Push Origin
https://i.stack.imgur.com/rUlEP.png
All set! You Have recovered the deleted File/Folder you can check it in your Repository
for uncommited deletions, Its as simple as this :
git reset HEAD rel/path/to/deleted/directory/*
Success story sharing
git checkout -- path/to/folder/*
does not work Note: the question is how to restore a folder not a fileHow can I retrieve all the files inside the directory
means both the directory and its files. But the command surprizingly doesn't work for me too. I remember it did a year ago.git checkout -- path
orgit checkout -- 'path/*'
. In your example you delete withgit rm
which the OP didn't seem to do. I've added instructions for such case. Thanks!git checkout "<deleting_commit>^" -- <file_path>