Ignoring Files

Sometimes you want files in your respository directory, but not in the repository itself, and you don't want those files to show up in status messages. You can use a .gitignore file to tell Git to ignore specific files.

A .gitignore file is a plain text file that contains one path¹ on each line. The paths may include globs. Relative paths are relative to the .gitignore file. The .gitignore file should be placed in the root directory of the repository.

Common items to include in a .gitignore file are backup files, compiled files (eg. *.exe, *.class, etc.), IDE configuration files, etc—anything that you do not want to track the history of in your repository.

The .gitignore file itself is usually tracked in the repository.

Anything after a # symbol in a .gitignore file until the end of the line is considered a comment and is ignored by Git.

Here is an example .gitignore file:

ignore.me  # Ignore files named ignore.me
foo/*      # Ignore all files inside the foo directory
*.bak      # Ignore all files ending with .bak