.gitignore and "The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout"

Question

So I added a folder to my .gitignore file.

Once I do a git status it tells me

# On branch latest nothing to commit (working directory clean) 

However, when I try to change branches I get the following:

My-MacBook-Pro:webapp marcamillion$ git checkout develop error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout:     public/system/images/9/thumb/red-stripe.jpg     public/system/images/9/original/red-stripe.jpg     public/system/images/8/thumb/red-stripe-red.jpg     public/system/images/8/original/red-stripe-red.jpg     public/system/images/8/original/00-louis_c.k.-chewed_up-cover-2008.jpg     public/system/images/7/thumb/red-stripe-dark.jpg     public/system/images/7/original/red-stripe-dark.jpg     public/system/images/7/original/DSC07833.JPG     public/system/images/6/thumb/red-stripe-bw.jpg     public/system/images/6/original/website-logo.png     public/system/images/6/original/red-stripe-bw.jpg     public/system/images/5/thumb/Guy_Waving_Jamaican_Flag.jpg     public/system/images/5/original/logocompv-colored-squares-100px.png     public/system/images/5/original/Guy_Waving_Jamaican_Flag.jpg     public/system/images/4/thumb/DSC_0001.JPG     public/system/images/4/original/logo.png     public/system/images/4/original/DSC_0001.JPG     public/system/images/4/original/2-up.jpg     public/system/images/3/thumb/logo2.gif     public/system/images/3/original/logo2.gif     public/system/images/3/original/Guy_Waving_Jamaican_Flag.jpg     public/system/images/3/original/11002000962.jpg     public/system/images/2/thumb/Profile Pic.jpg     public/system/images/2/original/Profile Pic.jpg     public/system/images/2/original/02 Login Screen.jpg     public/system/images/1/original/Argentina-2010-World-Cup.jpg Please move or remove them before you can switch branches. Aborting 

This is what my .gitignore file looks like:

.bundle .DS_Store db/*.sqlite3 log/*.log tmp/**/* public/system/images/* public/system/avatars/* 

How do I get this working so I can switch branches without deleting those files?

If I make a change, will it affect those files? In other words, if I came back to this branch afterwards would everything be perfect as up to my latest commit?

I don't want to lose those files, I just don't want them tracked.

Answer 1

WARNING: it will delete untracked files, so it's not a great answer to the question being posed.

I hit this message as well. In my case, I didn't want to keep the files, so this worked for me:

git 2.11 and newer

git clean  -d  -f . 

older git

git clean  -d  -f "" 

If you also want to remove files ignored by git, then execute the following command.

BE WARNED!!! THIS MOST PROBABLY DESTROYS YOUR PROJECT, USE ONLY IF YOU KNOW 100% WHAT YOU ARE DOING

git 2.11 and newer

git clean  -d  -fx . 

older git

git clean  -d  -fx "" 

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-clean.html

• -x means ignored files are also removed as well as files unknown to git.

• -d means remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files.

• -f is required to force it to run.