Git: list only "untracked" files (also, custom commands)

To list untracked files try:

git ls-files --others --exclude-standard

If you need to pipe the output to xargs, it is wise to mind white spaces using git ls-files -z and xargs -0:

git ls-files -z -o --exclude-standard | xargs -0 git add

Nice alias for adding untracked files:

au = !git add $(git ls-files -o --exclude-standard)

Edit: For reference: git-ls-files


If you just want to remove untracked files, do this:

git clean -df

add x to that if you want to also include specifically ignored files. I use git clean -dfx a lot throughout the day.

You can create custom git by just writing a script called git-whatever and having it in your path.


git add -A -n will do what you want. -A adds all untracked and modified files to the repo, -n makes it a dry-run where the add isn't performed but the status output is given listing each file that would have been added.