How do I undo the most recent local commits in Git?
How do I undo the most recent local commits in Git?
Question
I accidentally committed the wrong files to Git, but I haven't pushed the commit to the server yet.
How can I undo those commits from the local repository?
Accepted Answer
Undo a commit and redo
$ git commit -m "Something terribly misguided" # (1)
$ git reset HEAD~ # (2)
<< edit files as necessary >> # (3)
$ git add ... # (4)
$ git commit -c ORIG_HEAD # (5)
- This is what you want to undo.
- This does nothing to your working tree (the state of your files on disk), but undoes the commit and leaves the changes you committed unstaged (so they'll appear as "Changes not staged for commit" in
git status, so you'll need to add them again before committing). If you only want to add more changes to the previous commit, or change the commit message1, you could usegit reset --soft HEAD~instead, which is likegit reset HEAD~2 but leaves your existing changes staged. - Make corrections to working tree files.
git addanything that you want to include in your new commit.- Commit the changes, reusing the old commit message.
resetcopied the old head to.git/ORIG_HEAD;commitwith-c ORIG_HEADwill open an editor, which initially contains the log message from the old commit and allows you to edit it. If you do not need to edit the message, you could use the-Coption.
Beware, however, that if you have added any new changes to the index, using commit --amend will add them to your previous commit.
If the code is already pushed to your server and you have permissions to overwrite history (rebase) then:
git push origin master --force
You can also look at this answer:
How can I move HEAD back to a previous location? (Detached head) & Undo commits
The above answer will show you git reflog, which you can use to determine the SHA-1 for the commit to which you wish to revert. Once you have this value, use the sequence of commands as explained above.
1 Note, however, that you don't need to reset to an earlier commit if you just made a mistake in your commit message. The easier option is to git reset (to unstage any changes you've made since) and then git commit --amend, which will open your default commit message editor pre-populated with the last commit message.
2 HEAD~ is the same as HEAD~1. Also, see What is the HEAD in git?. It's helpful if you want to uncommit multiple commits.
Popular Answer
Undoing a commit is a little scary if you don't know how it works. But it's actually amazingly easy if you do understand.
Say you have this, where C is your HEAD and (F) is the state of your files.
(F)
A-B-C
↑
master
You want to nuke commit C and never see it again and lose all the changes in locally modified files. You do this:
git reset --hard HEAD~1
The result is:
(F)
A-B
↑
master
Now B is the HEAD. Because you used --hard, your files are reset to their state at commit B.
Ah, but suppose commit C wasn't a disaster, but just a bit off. You want to undo the commit but keep your changes for a bit of editing before you do a better commit. Starting again from here, with C as your HEAD:
(F)
A-B-C
↑
master
You can do this, leaving off the --hard:
git reset HEAD~1
In this case the result is:
(F)
A-B-C
↑
master
In both cases, HEAD is just a pointer to the latest commit. When you do a git reset HEAD~1, you tell Git to move the HEAD pointer back one commit. But (unless you use --hard) you leave your files as they were. So now git status shows the changes you had checked into C. You haven't lost a thing!
For the lightest touch, you can even undo your commit but leave your files and your index:
git reset --soft HEAD~1
This not only leaves your files alone, it even leaves your index alone. When you do git status, you'll see that the same files are in the index as before. In fact, right after this command, you could do git commit and you'd be redoing the same commit you just had.
One more thing: Suppose you destroy a commit as in the first example, but then discover you needed it after all? Tough luck, right?
Nope, there's still a way to get it back. Type git reflog and you'll see a list of (partial) commit shas (that is, hashes) that you've moved around in. Find the commit you destroyed, and do this:
git checkout -b someNewBranchName shaYouDestroyed
You've now resurrected that commit. Commits don't actually get destroyed in Git for some 90 days, so you can usually go back and rescue one you didn't mean to get rid of.
Read more… Read less…
There are two ways to "undo" your last commit, depending on whether or not you have already made your commit public (pushed to your remote repository):
How to undo a local commit
Let's say I committed locally, but now I want to remove that commit.
git log
commit 101: bad commit # Latest commit. This would be called 'HEAD'.
commit 100: good commit # Second to last commit. This is the one we want.
To restore everything back to the way it was prior to the last commit, we need to reset to the commit before HEAD:
git reset --soft HEAD^ # Use --soft if you want to keep your changes
git reset --hard HEAD^ # Use --hard if you don't care about keeping the changes you made
Now git log will show that our last commit has been removed.
How to undo a public commit
If you have already made your commits public, you will want to create a new commit which will "revert" the changes you made in your previous commit (current HEAD).
git revert HEAD
Your changes will now be reverted and ready for you to commit:
git commit -m 'restoring the file I removed by accident'
git log
commit 102: restoring the file I removed by accident
commit 101: removing a file we don't need
commit 100: adding a file that we need
For more information, check out Git Basics - Undoing Things.
Add/remove files to get things the way you want:
git rm classdir
git add sourcedir
Then amend the commit:
git commit --amend
The previous, erroneous commit will be edited to reflect the new index state - in other words, it'll be like you never made the mistake in the first place.
Note that you should only do this if you haven't pushed yet. If you have pushed, then you'll just have to commit a fix normally.
git rm yourfiles/*.class
git commit -a -m "deleted all class files in folder 'yourfiles'"
or
git reset --hard HEAD~1
Warning: The above command will permanently remove the modifications to the .java files (and any other files) that you wanted to commit.
The hard reset to HEAD-1 will set your working copy to the state of the commit before your wrong commit.
To change the last commit
Replace the files in the index:
git rm --cached *.class
git add *.java
Then, if it's a private branch, amend the commit:
git commit --amend
Or, if it's a shared branch, make a new commit:
git commit -m 'Replace .class files with .java files'
(To change a previous commit, use the awesome interactive rebase.)
ProTip™: Add *.class to a gitignore to stop this happening again.
To revert a commit
Amending a commit is the ideal solution if you need to change the last commit, but a more general solution is reset.
You can reset Git to any commit with:
git reset @~N
Where N is the number of commits before HEAD, and @~ resets to the previous commit.
So, instead of amending the commit, you could use:
git reset @~
git add *.java
git commit -m "Add .java files"
Check out git help reset, specifically the sections on --soft --mixed and --hard, for a better understanding of what this does.
Reflog
If you mess up, you can always use the reflog to find dropped commits:
$ git reset @~
$ git reflog
c4f708b [email protected]{0}: reset: moving to @~
2c52489 [email protected]{1}: commit: added some .class files
$ git reset 2c52489
... and you're back where you started