Untrack a file from a git branch without switching to the branch

Question

i have some files i don't need to be tracked (mostly uploaded images) However i do need them there... in the working directory

lets call it imageFolder

my .gitignore didn't have the line **/imageFolder some time ago... so some of the images are being tracked...

in the development process i have created a couple of branches with imageFolder tracked lets say we have 3 branches

• master
• cleanBranch
• dirtyBranch

right now i have cleanBranch checked out i fixed this branch with git rm -r --cached imagesFolder and added **/imagesFolder to the .gitignore

everything is perfectly fine :) and i am a happy camper...

PROBLEM

when i try to switch to dirtyBranch that still has those images tracked git says

error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout:
imageFolder/img1.jpg
imageFolder/img2.jpg
...
...
Aborting

it does't let me switch to the other branch so i can run git rm -r --cached and fix the .gitignore

is there a way to untrack those images from a branch that you don't have checked out... or my train of though is wrong and i should take a different approach to resolving this issue

I do need those images to be there in the folder

other than the images the 2 branches look quite different...

i am a git noob take it easy on me hehe :) thank you..

Answer 1

Just move the files out, which will remove the error. Then after you've done the cleanup, you can move them back in.