How can I make Git "forget" about a file that was tracked, but is now in .gitignore?

Question

There is a file that was being tracked by Git, but now the file is on the .gitignore list.

However, that file keeps showing up in git status after it's edited. How do you force Git to completely forget about it?

Answer 1

.gitignore will prevent untracked files from being added (without an add -f) to the set of files tracked by Git, however Git will continue to track any files that are already being tracked.

To stop tracking a file you need to remove it from the index. This can be achieved with this command.

git rm --cached <file> 

If you want to remove a whole folder, you need to remove all files in it recursively.

git rm -r --cached <folder> 

The removal of the file from the head revision will happen on the next commit.

WARNING: While this will not remove the physical file from your local, it will remove the files from other developers machines on next git pull.