Ever accidentally add a file to git that you don’t want to delete, but also don’t want sticking around in version control? A .env file perhaps? Every time I do this I need to look this up so I thought I would write it down here to save you and me both time. You’re welcome, self.

The trick is to use the --cached flag along with git rm as you might otherwise do.

For a single file

git rm --cached mylogfile.log

For an entire directory:

git rm --cached -r mydirectory