Git stashes are a powerful feature for temporarily shelving changes you’ve made in your working directory. This is incredibly useful when you need to switch branches or work on something else without committing incomplete work. However, over time, you might accumulate many stashes. This tutorial covers how to effectively manage these stashes, including listing them and deleting them, both individually and all at once.
What are Git Stashes?
Before diving into management, let’s quickly recap what stashes are. When you run git stash, Git takes the modified tracked files in your working directory and saves them as a "stash." It then reverts your working directory to the last committed state. This allows you to work on a clean slate. The stashed changes are stored separately and can be reapplied later using commands like git stash apply or git stash pop.
Listing Your Stashes
It’s good practice to keep track of your stashes. The git stash list command displays all of your stored stashes. Each stash is identified by an index, typically in the format stash@{index}. For example:
git stash list
This might output something like:
stash@{0}: WIP on main: a1b2c3d Fix bug
stash@{1}: WIP on feature/new-design: e4f5g6h Add new component
The WIP indicates "Work In Progress," and the text following it is a description you might have provided when creating the stash.
Deleting a Specific Stash
If you decide you no longer need a particular stash, you can delete it using the git stash drop command, followed by the stash index. For instance, to delete the stash at index stash@{1}, you would run:
git stash drop stash@{1}
Important: This action is irreversible. Once a stash is dropped, it’s difficult to recover the changes. Double-check the stash index before dropping it.
Clearing All Stashes
Sometimes, you might want to clear all of your stashes at once. Git provides a convenient command for this:
git stash clear
This command removes all stashed states. Be extremely cautious when using git stash clear, as the deleted stashes are difficult, if not impossible, to recover. It’s wise to review your stashes with git stash list before running this command.
Deleting Multiple Stashes with a Loop (Advanced)
If you need more fine-grained control and want to delete stashes based on age or some other criterion, you can use a loop. The following example demonstrates how to delete all stashes older than stash@{19}:
while git stash drop 'stash@{20}'; do true; done
This works because dropping a stash renumbers the remaining stashes. The loop continues dropping stashes until the specified index is reached. This approach requires careful consideration to ensure you don’t accidentally delete important stashes.
Best Practices
- Review before clearing: Always use
git stash listto review your stashes before usinggit stash clearor any script that drops stashes. - Descriptive messages: When creating stashes, use descriptive messages to easily identify them later. You can add a message using the
-mflag withgit stash:git stash -m "Fix bug in login" - Regular cleanup: Periodically review and clean up your stashes to prevent them from accumulating unnecessarily.
- Consider branching: For significant work-in-progress, consider creating a branch instead of relying heavily on stashes. Branches provide a more robust and collaborative way to manage changes.