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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-23T21:07:57+00:00

I mistakenly added a directory to git and when I followed the tip here

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I mistakenly added a directory to git and when I followed the tip here to undo the add by doing git reset HEAD <file>, I was horrified to discover that the current working copy of one of the files, which has lots of changes (work!) in it, reverted back to the previous version!

As a result I lost several hours worth of work… :((

I thought that git reset HEAD <file> only “removes it from the current index without changing anything else. What did I miss?

Is git reset HEAD <file> supposed to also check out the file from HEAD?

How can I minimize the chances of something like this happening again in the future?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Only git checkout -- <file> should have reverted the files in their previous stats.
    git reset HEAD <file> should only unstage the file, not revert its content.

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