Question

I try to remove unnecessary files from git repository. That files were initially added and now they are in several branches. What I want is simply stop tracking changes in that files, I don’t care what changes should stay there, but I need that files to stay on file system.

I tried following

git filter-branch --index-filter "git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch file_to_remove" HEAD

but that removed file from file system what is unwanted.

Answer 1

Just:

git rm --cached file [file ...]

Of course you’ll need to make sure the offending files are added to your .gitignore so they don’t get recommitted straight away