How to use git pull force to overwrite local files?

General Discussions
#1

How to use git pull force to overwrite local files?

#2

First, update all references to the latest changes on the remote repository:

git fetch --all

To ensure you have a backup of your current branch (e.g., master), create a new branch:

git branch backup-master

Switch to the latest commit on the remote master branch and update your local files:

git reset --hard origin/master

Explanation:

  • git fetch downloads the latest changes from the remote repository without merging or rebasing.
  • git reset --hard resets the local master branch to match the state of the remote master branch, discarding any local changes.

Note: If you want to keep your current local commits, create a new branch from the master branch before resetting:

git checkout master
git branch new-branch-to-save-current-commits
git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/master

This way, your old commits will be kept in the new branch new-branch-to-save-current-commits.

If you have uncommitted changes, even if they are staged with git add, they will be lost. To prevent this, stash or commit your changes before resetting:

git stash

Later, after resetting, you can reapply these changes:

git stash pop

This may lead to merge conflicts that you’ll need to resolve.

Warning: Any uncommitted local change to tracked files will be lost, even if staged.

But any local file that’s not tracked by Git will not be affected.

#3

To discard all uncommitted changes, including staged changes, and then pull the latest changes from the remote repository, you can use the following commands:

git reset --hard HEAD git pull

This will reset your working directory and index to the state of the last commit (HEAD), effectively removing any changes you’ve made since then. However, please note that any local files that are not tracked by Git will not be affected by these commands.

#4

Using git clean will permanently delete all untracked files and directories in your repository, and this action cannot be undone.

If you have untracked directories that need to be removed, you should use the -d option along with the -f option to force the deletion:

CAUTION: this action is irreversible!

git reset --hard HEAD git clean -f -d git pull

Before running git clean, it’s advisable to use the -n or --dry-run flag to see what will be deleted without actually deleting anything:

git clean -n -f -d

For example, the output might show:

Would remove untracked-file-1.txt Would remove untracked-file-2.txt Would remove untracked/folder

This allows you to review the list of files and directories that will be deleted before executing the actual cleanup.