How should you ignore files for just you in git?

No, this isn't a post about .gitignore

The .gitignore file is a great way to exclude files from a repository for all users. This post is not about that.

I often want to ignore files that a tool / editor I use generates in a project. Others who are working in the project may not be using these same tools so adding to a .gitignore file may not be the best solution.

Exclude file

There is the concept of a local exclude file in git. It works just like .gitignore but the file is not checked in.

It's available at .git/info/exclude from a project directory.

Keep in mind

Files that should always be ignored should be specified in .gitignore. Files that you want to exclude locally could go in .git/info/exclude 👍

(crossposted from ryanlanciaux.com)

Comments

[Shreyas Minocha]

Oh, that's new. I thought this would be about global gitignore. Thanks!

[Simeon Vincent]

If you commonly create files that you don't want to commit to any of your projects, you can also create a global ignore file.

$ git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

For example, say you're on a Mac and you want to make sure you never commit the .DS_Store files generated by your OS, you could run the below command to add an ignore rule to your global list.

$ echo ".DS_Store" >> ~/.gitignore_global

[Constantine Molchanov]

Knew about this trick but it never worked for me. Added a file to .git/info/exclude but it still gets tracked.

Is there anything else that should be done?

[Ryan Lanciaux]

Interesting- it’s always worked for me when I do this. Are these files that are previously tracked?

[Constantine Molchanov]

Yeah, that's why I'm trying to untrack them :-)

[Constantine Molchanov]

I think I got this: stackoverflow.com/questions/268824...

[Ryan Lanciaux]

Oh good! If or doesn’t end up working for you, please let me know and I can try to remember what I did in the past 😃

[Hassam Ali]

Man i wanted this so badly ♥️♥️♥️♥️

[Francisco Quintero 🇨🇴]

😮🤔🤔