Man page 1 : git-rm

git-rm - Remove files from the working tree and from the index

git rm [-f | --force] [-n] [-r] [--cached] [--ignore-unmatch] [--quiet] [--] <file>...

Remove files from the index, or from the working tree and the index. git rm will not remove a file from just your working directory. (There is no option to remove a file only from the working tree and yet keep it in the index; use /bin/rm if you want to do that.) The files being removed have to be identical to the tip of the branch, and no updates to their contents can be staged in the index, though that default behavior can be overridden with the -f option. When --cached is given, the staged content has to match either the tip of the branch or the file on disk, allowing the file to be removed from just the index.

<file>...
    Files to remove. Fileglobs (e.g. *.c) can be given to remove all matching files. If you want git to expand file glob characters, you may need to shell-escape them. A leading directory name (e.g. dir to remove dir/file1 and dir/file2) can be given to remove all files in the directory, and recursively all sub-directories, but this requires the -r option to be explicitly given.

-f, --force
    Override the up-to-date check.

-n, --dry-run
    Don(cqt actually remove any file(s). Instead, just show if they exist in the index and would otherwise be removed by the command.

-r
    Allow recursive removal when a leading directory name is given.

--
    This option can be used to separate command-line options from the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken for command-line options).

--cached
    Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index. Working tree files, whether modified or not, will be left alone.

--ignore-unmatch
    Exit with a zero status even if no files matched.

-q, --quiet
     git rm normally outputs one line (in the form of an rm command) for each file removed. This option suppresses that output.

The <file> list given to the command can be exact pathnames, file glob patterns, or leading directory names. The command removes only the paths that are known to git. Giving the name of a file that you have not told git about does not remove that file.

File globbing matches across directory boundaries. Thus, given two directories d and d2, there is a difference between using git rm \*(Aqd*\*(Aq and git rm \*(Aqd/*\*(Aq, as the former will also remove all of directory d2.

There is no option for git rm to remove from the index only the paths that have disappeared from the filesystem. However, depending on the use case, there are several ways that can be done.

6.1. Using git commit -a ▲

6.2. Using git add -A ▲

git ls-files -z | xargs -0 rm -f

git add -A

6.3. Other ways ▲

git diff --name-only --diff-filter=D -z | xargs -0 git rm --cached

git rm Documentation/\*.txt
    Removes all *.txt files from the index that are under the Documentation directory and any of its subdirectories.

Note that the asterisk * is quoted from the shell in this example; this lets git, and not the shell, expand the pathnames of files and subdirectories under the Documentation/ directory.

git rm -f git-*.sh
    Because this example lets the shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not remove subdir/git-foo.sh.

git-add(1)

Written by Linus Torvalds <\m[blue]\\fR\m[]\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2>

Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <\m[blue]\\fR\m[]\s-2\u[2]\d\s+2>.

Part of the git(1) suite

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