How to Add an Already Committed File to Gitignore

If you’ve already committed a file to Git and want to add it to .gitignore, follow these steps.

1. Add the file to .gitignore

Open your .gitignore file (or create one if it doesn’t exist) and add the file or directory you want to ignore. For example:

path/to/file.txt

2. Remove the file from Git’s tracking

To stop Git from tracking the file (but not delete it from your filesystem), run:

git rm --cached path/to/file.txt

3. Commit the change

Commit the change to remove the file from version control:

git commit -m "Stop tracking file.txt and add it to .gitignore"

4. Push the changes

Finally, push the changes to your remote repository:

git push

Now the file will be ignored by Git, and it won’t be tracked in future commits.