How do I clear my local working directory in Git? [duplicate]

To reset a specific file to the last-committed state (to discard uncommitted changes in a specific file):

git checkout thefiletoreset.txt

This is mentioned in the git status output:

(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

To reset the entire repository to the last committed state:

git reset --hard

To remove untracked files, I usually just delete all files in the working copy (but not the .git/ folder!), then do git reset --hard which leaves it with only committed files.

A better way is to use git clean (warning: using the -x flag as below will cause Git to delete ignored files):

git clean -d -x -f

will remove untracked files, including directories (-d) and files ignored by git (-x). Replace the -f argument with -n to perform a dry-run or -i for interactive mode, and it will tell you what will be removed.

Relevant links:

• git-reset man page
• git-clean man page
• git ready "cleaning up untracked files" (as Marko posted)
• Stack Overflow question "How to remove local (untracked) files from the current Git working tree")

Use:

git clean -df

It's not well advertised, but git clean is really handy. Git Ready has a nice introduction to git clean.