How can I git stash a specific file?

Question

How can I stash a specific file leaving the others currently modified out of the stash I am about to save?

For example, if git status gives me this:

younker % git status # On branch master # Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit. # # Changes not staged for commit: # (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed) # (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory) # # modified: app/controllers/cart_controller.php # modified: app/views/cart/welcome.thtml # no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

and I only want to stash app/views/cart/welcome.thtml, how would I do that? Something like (but of course this does not work):

git stash save welcome_cart app/views/cart/welcome.thtml

you can use git checkout -- filename and revert it to the original state. — visualex
– visualex, Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 9:57
Re Penguin Brian's comment: Yes, the accepted answer to the "possible duplicate" question links to this question for recent versions of git. — Mars
– Mars, Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 18:29
Does this answer your question? How do I stash only one file out of multiple files that have changed? — Nemo
– Nemo, Commented May 2, 2024 at 23:44

yivi · Accepted Answer · 2025-01-05 10:45:43Z

3559

Since git 2.13, there is a command to save a specific path to the stash: git stash push <path>. For example:

git stash push -m welcome_cart app/views/cart/welcome.thtml

With earlier versions:

You can do that using git stash --patch (or git stash -p) -- you'll enter interactive mode where you'll be presented with each hunk that was changed. Use n to skip the files that you don't want to stash, y when you encounter the one that you want to stash, and q to quit and leave the remaining hunks unstashed. a will stash the shown hunk and the rest of the hunks in that file.

Not the most user-friendly approach, but it gets the work done if you really need it.

edited Jan 5 at 10:45

yivi

48.2k18 gold badges133 silver badges157 bronze badges

answered Mar 31, 2011 at 21:19

svick

247k54 gold badges407 silver badges535 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

25 Comments

James Johnston Over a year ago

Cumbersome, but works. I wish there was a quick way to stash only staged changes, and then have the changes go into the unstaged working tree when it's later popped.

nimser Over a year ago

@JamesJohnston git stash --keep-index will allow you to stash all the unstaged changes (the opposite of what you're looking for). stackoverflow.com/a/8333163/378253

i_am_jorf Over a year ago

If you say a instead of y it will stash that hunk + the remainder of the file, which is much faster.

omnikron Over a year ago

@jeffamaphone great! also d will do the opposite, i.e. not stash any further hunks in the current file. and indeed ? will show all possible options.

svick Over a year ago

@Vencovsky It stands for "message" and is used to specify optional description of the stash. If you don't need that, you can leave the -m welcome_cart part out.

|

Anton Menshov · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-24 10:03:13Z

411

I usually add to index changes I don't want to stash and then stash with --keep-index option.

git add app/controllers/cart_controller.php git stash --keep-index git reset

The last step is optional, but usually, you want it. It removes changes from the index.

Warning As noted in the comments, git stash --keep-index pushes everything onto the stash, both staged and unstaged. The --keep-index just leaves the index alone after the stash is done. This can cause merge conflicts when you later pop the stash.

edited Jun 24, 2021 at 10:03

Anton Menshov

2,32415 gold badges38 silver badges59 bronze badges

answered Dec 18, 2012 at 20:40

skalee

12.8k6 gold badges57 silver badges59 bronze badges

6 Comments

quux00 Over a year ago

This is much better than the accepted answer if you have a lot changes you don't want to wade through with the --patch option.

Raman Over a year ago

No, this puts everything into the stash, both staged and unstaged. The --keep-index just leaves the index alone after the stash is done. So this isn't a valid answer to the question, AFAICT.

JesusFreke Over a year ago

See my answer on @Rachel's question for a solution to doing the inverse of this (stashing the staged changes, instead of the unstaged changes) - stackoverflow.com/questions/3040833/…

yndolok Over a year ago

After, if you want to get back the files you stashed without committing the files you added, you can run git stash; git stash pop stash@{1}.

rjmunro Over a year ago

WARNING: Take note of @Raman's point. This doesn't do what it should. This will put the same changes in the stash and leave them in the working tree. When you later try to pop the stash, you are likely to get merge conflicts, and they are often really confusing and hard to fix.

|

Matthias Braun · Accepted Answer · 2025-04-14 20:42:56Z

411

For stashing one file:

git stash -- filename.txt

To provide a message in the command rather than enter it when prompted, add -m before the file part, e.g. git stash -m "stash-message" -- filename1.txt

For stashing more than one file:

git stash -m "stash-message" -- filename1.txt filename2.txt…

edited Apr 14 at 20:42

Matthias Braun

34.8k27 gold badges158 silver badges177 bronze badges

answered Dec 1, 2021 at 2:56

HongchaoZhang

5,4021 gold badge19 silver badges10 bronze badges

9 Comments

Nico Brenner Over a year ago

This only works for tracked files, otherwise you get an error like: error: pathspec 'filename1' did not match any file(s) known to git

Fenix Over a year ago

For stashing with a message add -m before file part, e.g. git stash -m "your message" -- filename1.txt filename2.txt

DonLarry Over a year ago

You can also stash untracked files by adding them to the staging area, e.g., git add my.file and then git stash -- my.file. And whenever you apply the stash changes, if you want, you can unstage them, so they remain untracked again.

Bower Over a year ago

What exactly does the -- represent here? Is it some type of convention specific to git or something more general?

Jim Over a year ago

@Bower -- means treat everything that follows me as a filename.

|

dlq · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-21 22:41:15Z

196

To add to svick's answer, the -m option simply adds a message to your stash, and is entirely optional. Thus, the command

git stash push [paths you wish to stash]

is perfectly valid. So for instance, if I want to only stash changes in the src/ directory, I can just run

git stash push src/

edited Sep 21, 2020 at 22:41

answered Sep 3, 2020 at 21:35

dlq

3,2991 gold badge15 silver badges15 bronze badges

2 Comments

Olle Härstedt Over a year ago

NB: Popping is done without the path, just git stash pop.

stwr667 Over a year ago

This command is much more efficient than the --keep-index suggestion above which requires multiple commands, and is a bit counter-intuitive (adding the files you don't want to stash).

Akshay · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-25 12:20:33Z

If you are using visual studio code there is a simpler way to stash selected files.

Make sure you have installed GitLens extension in VSCode
Go to Source Control tab
Select files those you want to stash
Right click on it, you will see many options. Click on Stash Changes

Now it will ask you to add some stash message. Add understandable message and hit enter.

mine shows: discard changes, stage changes, add to gitignore. Not stash
great solution for many users of vscode, no need to fiddle with commands

Vicky P · Accepted Answer · 2023-10-20 02:58:15Z

35

Short and Simple solution:

git stash -- filename.ext

in your case git stash -- app/views/cart/welcome.thtml

edited Oct 20, 2023 at 2:58

answered Oct 8, 2021 at 11:52

Vicky P

7828 silver badges16 bronze badges

6 Comments

Jellicle Over a year ago

What version of git supports this? I'm on 2.1.4, and it's not supported.

Vicky P Over a year ago

Hi @JellicleCat I am using 2.31.1

YiPing Chiu Over a year ago

if want to add comment : git stash push -m 【comment】 -- 【file path】

ABcDexter Over a year ago

This makes sense when we are stashing a single file. Worked fine but what about multiple files?

Vicky P Over a year ago

@ABcDexter we can add multiple file with space separator.

|

Omkesh Sajjanwar · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-15 10:16:32Z

git status (make sure your changes that can stash)

src/config/bl.go

src/config/dl.go

If you want to stash only dl.go

git stash push -m "< enter your msg eg:dl files reverted> " src/config/dl.go

Show your stash list

git stash list

Then checkout your branch and apply stash

git stash apply stash{0}

Omid · Accepted Answer · 2023-08-12 17:44:17Z

Since git 2.35.0 you can stash staged changes using --staged | -S flag.

For instance:

git stash --staged

--staged

This option is only valid for push and save commands.

Stash only the changes that are currently staged. This is similar to basic git commit except the state is committed to the stash instead of current branch.

The --patch option has priority over this one.

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-stash/2.35.0#Documentation/git-stash.txt---staged

The nice part about this new feature is that not only it's possible to stash specific untracked files, but also it's possible to stash specific part of the code changes in tracked files; when you add those to stage using --patch | -p flag.

Very useful option - makes it much more straightforward to cherry-pick which files to stash (IDE-assisted), vs. the cli-based one change at a time with --patch

georgiecasey · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-23 00:41:31Z

If you're OK with using a GIT GUI client, Fork can pretty seamlessly do this as of May 2020. A GIF of the partial stash functionality will show this better than any words:

Note that Fork (which is a difficult name to Google for!) is not free software and costs $50 after the evaluation period, but you can just ignore the popups like you do for WinRAR or WinZip.

Justin · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-29 07:08:22Z

@svick has posted a great answer. I wanted to stash all my .java files and leave build.gradle untouched so I ran:

git stash push *.java

Matt C. · Accepted Answer · 2023-08-15 14:31:08Z

My preferred method (the easiest in my opinion) is simply:

git stash -- <path/to/directory>

or

git stash -- path/to/directory/file.py

Brent Worden · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-23 16:46:38Z

stage the changes you do NOT want to stash.
stash the remaining unstaged files with:

$ git stash save <give_it_a_name> --keep-index

The unstaged files are now stashed. See the stash list with your named stash:

$ git stash list stash@{0}: On mybranch: WIP220412-1119am stash@{1}: On mybranch: WIP220312-749am

To restore the stashed files:

$ git stash apply stash@{<index_of_saved_stash>} $ git stash apply stash@{0}

The changes stashed in WIP220412-1119am are now restored. And the stash list remains as well, (instead of "git stash pop", you can retain the list this way.)

This only works for changed files I guess? If you want to add a new file to a stash you need to stage it first, which doesn't work with the --keep-index flag.

scott · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-14 03:29:09Z

4

I think using `git stash push <path>` will be nice! it also supports patterns.

eg. git stash push welcome.*ml will stash any start with welcome. and end with ml files. This is suitable for you.

answered Mar 14, 2023 at 3:29

scott

1311 silver badge3 bronze badges

2 Comments

Mohammad Abdurraafay Over a year ago

This also supports multiple paths inline.

Devendra Singh Over a year ago

@MohammadAbdurraafay add some inline example.

Sairam Gourishetty · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-24 07:59:36Z

0

In Source Control tab of vs-code, hold shift key and then select the files you want to stash, then right click and choose stash changes option.

answered Feb 24, 2022 at 7:59

Sairam Gourishetty

7501 gold badge9 silver badges14 bronze badges

1 Comment

Charles Plager Over a year ago

This is the same as Akshay's answer(stackoverflow.com/a/68377913/821832) but his has more details.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How can I git stash a specific file?

14 Answers 14

25 Comments

6 Comments

9 Comments

2 Comments

3 Comments

6 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

I think using `git stash push <path>` will be nice! it also supports patterns.

2 Comments

1 Comment

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

14 Answers 14

25 Comments

6 Comments

9 Comments

2 Comments

3 Comments

6 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

I think using git stash push <path> will be nice! it also supports patterns.

2 Comments

1 Comment

Linked

Related

I think using `git stash push <path>` will be nice! it also supports patterns.