DEV Community

Cover image for How to create a global .gitignore file
Thomas Rigby
Thomas Rigby

Posted on • Originally published at thomasxbanks.com on

How to create a global .gitignore file

Unfortunately, this has happened to the best of us at some point, amirite?!

Screenshot of GitKraken showing a new git ignore file and 30,383 deleted files in the node modules folder

Inspired by this monstrosity, I decided to do some investigation!

Here is how to create a global .gitignore file to define a list of rules for ignoring files in every single Git repository on your computer…


  touch ~/.gitignore_global
  echo node_modules >> ~/.gitignore_global
  echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore_global
  echo .vscode >> ~/.gitignore_global
  git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

For more handy git tips: RTFM 😉

Top comments (0)