In this article you will learn that how you can easily stash untracked git files and how to clean your working tree with loses any changes and How to restore untracked files in git?

To stash an untracked file in Git, you first need to add the file to the staging area using the git add command:

git add <file>
git stash save "Stash message"

where <file> is the name of the untracked file you want to stash, and "Stash message" is an optional message describing the stash.

After adding the file to the staging area, you can then run the git stash command as usual to stash the changes. The untracked file will be included in the stash and can be reapplied later.

Note: Stashing untracked files can be useful in cases where you want to preserve the changes to an untracked file without committing them to the repository. However, it's important to keep in mind that stashes are temporary and can be lost if you switch to a different branch or reset your repository, so it's usually best to commit important changes to the repository's history. 

Does git stash store untracked files?

Yes, git stash does store untracked files along with other staged changes. When you run the git stash command, it will save the state of your working directory and the staged changes, including any untracked files that have been added to the staging area using the git add command.

To stash an untracked file, you first need to add it to the staging area using the git add command:

git add <file>
git stash save "Stash message"

where <file> is the name of the untracked file you want to stash, and "Stash message" is an optional message describing the stash.

This will save the changes to the untracked file along with other staged changes in a stash, which you can reapply later using the git stash apply command.

Note: While stashing untracked files can be useful in certain situations, it's important to keep in mind that stashes are temporary and can be lost if you switch to a different branch or reset your repository, so it's usually best to commit important changes to the repository's history.
 

How do I find untracked files in git?

To find untracked files in Git, you can use the git status command. The git status command displays the status of the repository, including information about changes to tracked files and any untracked files in the working directory.

To see a list of untracked files, run the following command:

git status

The output will show a section labeled "Untracked files" that lists any untracked files in the working directory.

You can also use the git ls-files command with the --others option to show only untracked files:

git ls-files --others

This will list all untracked files in the working directory, excluding any files that are ignored by Git.

What to do with untracked files?

Once you've found untracked files in your Git repository, you have several options for how to handle them:

1. Ignoring the files: If you don't want to track certain files, you can add them to a .gitignore file in your repository to tell Git to ignore them. You can use this option for files that are generated by your build process, for example, or for files that contain sensitive information.
2. Stashing the changes: If you have changes to untracked files that you want to preserve temporarily without committing them to the repository, you can stash them using git stash. Stashed changes can be reapplied later, but keep in mind that stashes are temporary and can be lost if you switch to a different branch or reset your repository.
3. Adding and committing the files: If you want to track the untracked files and include their changes in your repository, you need to add them to the staging area using the git add command and then commit the changes using git commit. This is the recommended option if the untracked files contain important changes that you want to keep track of in the repository's history.

It's important to regularly review the list of untracked files in your repository and make decisions about how to handle them, as untracked files can consume disk space and make it more difficult to manage the changes in your repository over time.