Question

I have been working on my android project and have been pushing and commiting to a host. I want the Git GUI to stop tracking the bin folder. How can I do that. Note that I am not able to use the BASH interface because its a bit faulty.

How can I add the bin folder to .gitignore?

Answer 1

You have to either create a file named .gitignore (with your plain old text editor) in the root of you git repository and specify the path to the bin directory. After you create and edit this file you have to commit it to git.

Or you can edit .git/info/excludes (with your plain old text editor) and specify the path to the bin directory. This file does not need to be committed.

Mind the fact that if you have already added that file to git’s version tracking you should remove it (careful, removing it from the repository also removes the files themselves so make backups).

AFAIK removing the file from version tracking is not mandatory because git should ignore them and when you commit next time they should be skipped. But it makes little sense to have the files in version tracking and never change them (there are a few cases).