What's the easiest way to undo a git add

Issue

How do you undo git add . without losing the changes made on local?

I wanted to git add './file1.java './file2.java' but instead did git add .

Solution

Run git reset to unstage all pending changes from the local index.

This does not alter your local files at all, it just resets your local git index and is safe to run.

If there are only particular directories you want to unstage then you can pass a pathspec:

$ git reset -- ./some/path

Only files under that path will be unstaged, everything else will remain staged in the index.

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Although it’s a bit technical, this is discussed in the git documentation: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-reset

This means that git reset <pathspec> is the opposite of git add <pathspec>. This command is equivalent to git restore [--source=<tree-ish>] --staged <pathspec>....

For example, after running these two commands it has no net effect – the local index will end up back where it started:

$ git add .
$ git reset .

Answered By – Sly_cardinal

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