How to remove files in Git?

There are two ways of deleting files in Git. Whichever method you select, in the end, you have to run git commit command to delete the file from your working directory.

1. Using rm command
2. Using git rm command

You can visualize the entire process of removing files in Git using a state diagram.

Note: A file is being tracked by Git otherwise you won't be able to take advantage of git rm command.

How to remove files using rm command?

When you use rm command, then the file goes into a deleted state, which you can confirm by running git status command.

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

        deleted:    index.html

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

Here, the file that we want to delete is index.html

After that, run git rm filename command to move the file to a staging area. In our case, the file is index.html so the command will be git rm index.html. When you run git status command, you will get the following output:

$git rm index.html
$git status
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD ..." to unstage)

        deleted:    index.html

Finally, you have to run git commit to ensure that the file is deleted from the Git repo.

$git commit -m "Remove index file"

How to remove files using git rm command?

On running git rm command, the file is not deleted; actually, it goes into a staging area. After moving the file to the staging area, you have to run git commit command to delete that file from a Git repository. Let's understand the entire process with the help of an example.

Suppose you want to delete index.html file, so you must run git rm index.html. After that, run git status command to confirm that the file is in the staging area.

$git rm index.html
$git status
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD ..." to unstage)

        deleted:    index.html

Next, you have to run git commit command to confirm the removal of the file from a Git repository.

$git commit -m "Delete index.html file"