Undo working copy modifications of one file in Git

Question

After the last commit, I modified a bunch of files in my working copy, but I want to undo the changes to one of those files, as in reset it to the same state as the most recent commit.

However, I only want to undo the working copy changes of just that one file alone, nothing else with it.

How do I do that?

Answer 1

If your file is already staged (happens when you do a git add etc after the file is edited) to unstage your changes.

Use

git reset HEAD <file>

Then

git checkout <file>

If not already staged, just use

git checkout <file>

Answer 2

You can use

git checkout -- file

You can do it without the -- (as suggested by nimrodm), but if the filename looks like a branch or tag (or other revision identifier), it may get confused, so using -- is best.

You can also check out a particular version of a file:

git checkout v1.2.3 -- file         # tag v1.2.3
git checkout stable -- file         # stable branch
git checkout origin/master -- file  # upstream master
git checkout HEAD -- file           # the version from the most recent commit
git checkout HEAD^ -- file          # the version before the most recent commit

Answer 3

If you want to just undo the previous commit's changes to that one file, you can try this:

git checkout branchname^ filename

This will checkout the file as it was before the last commit. If you want to go a few more commits back, use the branchname~n notation.

Answer 4

I have Done through git bash:

(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

1. Git status. [So we have seen one file wad modified.]
2. git checkout -- index.html [i have changed in index.html file :
3. git status [now those changes was removed]

Answer 5

I always get confused with this, so here is a reminder test case; let's say we have this bash script to test git:

set -x
rm -rf test
mkdir test
cd test
git init
git config user.name test
git config user.email [e-mail]
echo 1 > a.txt
echo 1 > b.txt
git add *
git commit -m "initial commit"
echo 2 >> b.txt
git add b.txt
git commit -m "second commit"
echo 3 >> b.txt

---

At this point, the change is not staged in the cache, so git status is:

$ git status
On branch master
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

    modified:   b.txt

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

If from this point, we do git checkout, the result is this:

$ git checkout HEAD -- b.txt
$ git status
On branch master
nothing to commit, working directory clean

If instead we do git reset, the result is:

$ git reset HEAD -- b.txt
Unstaged changes after reset:
M   b.txt
$ git status
On branch master
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

    modified:   b.txt

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

So, in this case - if the changes are not staged, git reset makes no difference, while git checkout overwrites the changes.

---

Now, let's say that the last change from the script above is staged/cached, that is to say we also did git add b.txt at the end.

In this case, git status at this point is:

$ git status
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

    modified:   b.txt

If from this point, we do git checkout, the result is this:

$ git checkout HEAD -- b.txt
$ git status
On branch master
nothing to commit, working directory clean

If instead we do git reset, the result is:

$ git reset HEAD -- b.txt
Unstaged changes after reset:
M   b.txt
$ git status
On branch master
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

    modified:   b.txt

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

So, in this case - if the changes are staged, git reset will basically make staged changes into unstaged changes - while git checkout will overwrite the changes completely.

Answer 6

For me only this one worked

git checkout -p filename