What do the “M” and “A” icons in the Project Navig

Question

Xcode 4 is showing me grey "M" and "A" icons next to my files in the project navigator. I believe they're related to source control.

The point is this: All my old Xcode 3 projects opened and edited in Xcode 4 don't show these icons! My new project which I created in Xcode 4 isn't under source control either.

When I created the project I unchecked the "Git" option. But Xcode still shows me a "Source Control" info in the inspector when clicking on a file. All files initially created by the project template are marked as "committed" where as all files I add myself are not. So either Xcode ignored my wish not to use Git or it's a bug, or both.

Update: Some recommend deleting the .git folder. Since it starts with a dot it's probably a hidden folder, and therefore I made hidden files visible in Finder using this trick in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

However, it appears that there is NO .Git folder in my project folder (checked all containing folders). But still, Xcode is putting my new projects under source control even though the Git checkbox is disabled.

How can I get rid of it if I don't want to use source control yet?

Answer 1

Yes, it is related to source control.

"M" means the file has been modified since the last commit, and "A" means the file has been added since the last commit.

If you're using git, you can remove source control by deleting the .git directory in your project folder.

Answer 2

Those icons stand for Added / Modified files under source control, like other devs pointed out.

If you're experiencing that these icons appear even if you did not check the "Git" checkbox when creating a new project, and if you're sure your project is not really under source control, then just do this:

Restart Xcode, and the issue is gone for your project. The icons disappear and everything is fine :-)

It's a weird Xcode Bug.

Answer 3

And if you use subversion, this is of course related to it, so remove .svn directories

Answer 4

Those characters refer to the source control.

• ? - Unversioned
• M - Modified
• A - Added
• A+ - Moved / renamed
• U - Newer version of a file on source control
• I - Item is being ignored (e.g. with the svn:ignore property).
• ! - Item is missing (e.g. you moved or deleted it without using svn). This also indicates that a directory is incomplete (a checkout or update was interrupted).

Ref: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.ref.svn.c.status.html