How should you ignore files for just you in git?

Publish Date: Sep 27 '19

87 9

No, this isn't a post about .gitignore

The .gitignore file is a great way to exclude files from a repository for all users. This post is not about that.

I often want to ignore files that a tool / editor I use generates in a project. Others who are working in the project may not be using these same tools so adding to a .gitignore file may not be the best solution.

Exclude file

There is the concept of a local exclude file in git. It works just like .gitignore but the file is not checked in.

It's available at .git/info/exclude from a project directory.

Keep in mind

Files that should always be ignored should be specified in .gitignore. Files that you want to exclude locally could go in .git/info/exclude 👍

(crossposted from ryanlanciaux.com)

Comments 9 total

Shreyas MinochaSep 27, 2019

Oh, that's new. I thought this would be about global gitignore. Thanks!
Francisco Quintero 🇨🇴Sep 28, 2019

😮🤔🤔
Hassam Ali Sep 28, 2019

Man i wanted this so badly ♥️♥️♥️♥️
Constantine MolchanovSep 28, 2019

Knew about this trick but it never worked for me. Added a file to .git/info/exclude but it still gets tracked.

Is there anything else that should be done?
- Ryan LanciauxSep 28, 2019
  
  Interesting- it’s always worked for me when I do this. Are these files that are previously tracked?
  - Constantine MolchanovSep 28, 2019
    
    Yeah, that's why I'm trying to untrack them :-)
  - Constantine MolchanovSep 28, 2019
    
    I think I got this: stackoverflow.com/questions/268824...
    - Ryan LanciauxSep 28, 2019
      
      Oh good! If or doesn’t end up working for you, please let me know and I can try to remember what I did in the past 😃
Simeon VincentSep 30, 2019
If you commonly create files that you don't want to commit to any of your projects, you can also create a global ignore file.
$ git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global
For example, say you're on a Mac and you want to make sure you never commit the .DS_Store files generated by your OS, you could run the below command to add an ignore rule to your global list.
$ echo ".DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global

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Ryan Lanciaux @ryanlanciaux