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Git 101: git stash

Nov 02, 2022 · 2 mins read · Post a comment

Git stash simply saves your staged and unstaged changes (uncommitted though) for a later use, so you could checkout another working directory, or even continue your work in the same working directory as clean as possible. There are few handy stash operation I want to explore as you might need them in the future.

Prerequisites

  • Git

Solution

Stashing current changes:

git stash

Note(s): You can do the same with git stash push as they are the same command.

List all Git stashes:

git stash list

To show a certain Git stash diff between the HEAD commit and the stash, run:

git stash show stash@<index> 

Give a certain Git stash a name:

git stash push -m "devcoops_1"

To stash a single file, run:

git stash push -m "devcoops_2" index.html

Stash changes to a branch, run:

git stash branch <branch> 

Note(s): This has to be a non-existing branch, as it will create and checkout the branch.

git stash apply and pop

git stash apply will apply all changes from the stash to the current working directory of the checked out branch. For instance:

git stash apply index@{2}

git stash pop basically will do the same as git stash apply except the last part. It will delete the stash tho once the stored changes are applied. git stash pop = git stash apply && git stash drop. Example:

git stash pop index@{3}

Note(s): If you don’t specify the stash index, it will apply or pop (whatever the case might be) the latest one.

unstaged files only == exclude staged

To exclude the staged files, run:

git stash push --keep-index

untracked and ignored files

For untracked files, run:

git stash --include-untracked

or the short version: -u.

Regarding ignored files, execute the following command:

git stash --all

or just -a.

removing stashes

Delete a single stash:

git stash drop stash@{<index>}

Delete all stashes:

git stash clear

Conclusion

To find more neat Git commands and hacks, simply browse the Git category. Feel free to leave a comment below and if you find this tutorial useful, follow our official channel on Telegram.

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