Ignoring files and folders in Git

setting up a global gitignore, how gitignore patterns match, and removing files from the repo that are now ignored

Create a global .gitignore

1touch ~/.gitignore_global
2git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

• foo/ will match a directory but not a file or symbolic link
• foo without the / is a glob pattern
• **/foo will match a file or directory anywhere

Remove files that are ignored now but are still in the Git repo

1git rm -r --cached node_modules
2git commit -m 'Remove the now ignored directory node_modules'
3git push origin master

s Links

• manual: gitignore
• A collection of .gitignore templates