GIT-CLEAN(1)			  Git Manual			  GIT-CLEAN(1)



NAME
       git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

SYNOPSIS
       git clean [-d] [-f] [-i] [-n] [-q] [-e <pattern>] [-x | -X] [--] <path>...


DESCRIPTION
       Cleans the working tree by recursively removing files that are not
       under version control, starting from the current directory.

       Normally, only files unknown to Git are removed, but if the -x option
       is specified, ignored files are also removed. This can, for example, be
       useful to remove all build products.

       If any optional <path>... arguments are given, only those paths are
       affected.

OPTIONS
       -d
	   Normally, when no <path> is specified, git clean will not recurse
	   into untracked directories to avoid removing too much. Specify -d
	   to have it recurse into such directories as well. If any paths are
	   specified, -d is irrelevant; all untracked files matching the
	   specified paths (with exceptions for nested git directories
	   mentioned under --force) will be removed.

       -f, --force
	   If the Git configuration variable clean.requireForce is not set to
	   false, git clean will refuse to delete files or directories unless
	   given -f or -i. Git will refuse to modify untracked nested git
	   repositories (directories with a .git subdirectory) unless a second
	   -f is given.

       -i, --interactive
	   Show what would be done and clean files interactively. See
	   "Interactive mode" for details.

       -n, --dry-run
	   Don't actually remove anything, just show what would be done.

       -q, --quiet
	   Be quiet, only report errors, but not the files that are
	   successfully removed.

       -e <pattern>, --exclude=<pattern>
	   Use the given exclude pattern in addition to the standard ignore
	   rules (see gitignore(5)).

       -x
	   Don't use the standard ignore rules (see gitignore(5)), but still
	   use the ignore rules given with -e options from the command line.
	   This allows removing all untracked files, including build products.
	   This can be used (possibly in conjunction with git restore or git
	   reset) to create a pristine working directory to test a clean
	   build.

       -X
	   Remove only files ignored by Git. This may be useful to rebuild
	   everything from scratch, but keep manually created files.

INTERACTIVE MODE
       When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the files and
       directories to be cleaned, and goes into its interactive command loop.

       The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a
       prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends with a single >,
       you can pick only one of the choices given and type return, like this:

	       *** Commands ***
		   1: clean		   2: filter by pattern	   3: select by numbers
		   4: ask each		   5: quit		   6: help
	       What now> 1


       You also could say c or clean above as long as the choice is unique.

       The main command loop has 6 subcommands.

       clean
	   Start cleaning files and directories, and then quit.

       filter by pattern
	   This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
	   "Input ignore patterns>>" prompt. You can input space-separated
	   patterns to exclude files and directories from deletion. E.g. "*.c
	   *.h" will excludes files end with ".c" and ".h" from deletion. When
	   you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER (empty)
	   back to the main menu.

       select by numbers
	   This shows the files and directories to be deleted and issues an
	   "Select items to delete>>" prompt. When the prompt ends with double
	   >> like this, you can make more than one selection, concatenated
	   with whitespace or comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9"
	   to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If the second number in a
	   range is omitted, all remaining items are selected. E.g. "7-" to
	   choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say * to choose everything.
	   Also when you are satisfied with the filtered result, press ENTER
	   (empty) back to the main menu.

       ask each
	   This will start to clean, and you must confirm one by one in order
	   to delete items. Please note that this action is not as efficient
	   as the above two actions.

       quit
	   This lets you quit without do cleaning.

       help
	   Show brief usage of interactive git-clean.

CONFIGURATION
       Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
       the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what's
       found there:

       clean.requireForce
	   A boolean to make git-clean do nothing unless given -f, -i or -n.
	   Defaults to true.

SEE ALSO
       gitignore(5)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



Git 2.38.4			  02/20/2023			  GIT-CLEAN(1)