Unstage a file in Git

When you stage a file in Git, you instruct Git to track changes to the file in preparation for a commit. To instruct Git to disregard changes to a file, and not include it in your next commit, unstage the file.

• To remove files from stage use reset HEAD, where HEAD is the last commit of the current branch. This unstages the file but maintains the modifications.

  git reset HEAD <file>
  

• To revert the file back to the state it was in before the changes:

  git checkout -- <file>
  

• To remove a file from disk and repository, use git rm. To remove a directory, use the -r flag:

  git rm '*.txt'
  git rm -r <dirname>
  

• To keep a file on disk but remove it from the repository (such as a file you want to add to .gitignore), use the rm command with the --cache flag:

  git rm <filename> --cache