Is There a Command to Undo Git Init?

I just Git init'ed a repos with a wrong user, and want to undo it. Is there any command for this? Do I actually have to go in and edit the .git directory?

2

You can just delete .git. Typically:

rm -rf .git

Then, recreate as the right user.

11

In windows, type rmdir .git or rmdir /s .git if the .git folder has subfolders.

If your git shell isn't setup with proper administrative rights (i.e. it denies you when you try to rmdir), you can open a command prompt (possibly as administrator--hit the windows key, type 'cmd', right click 'command prompt' and select 'run as administrator) and try the same commands.

rd is an alternative form of the rmdir command.

3

remove the .git folder in your project root folder

if you installed submodules and want to remove their git, also remove .git from submodules folders

Git keeps all of its files in the .git directory. Just remove that one and init again.

This post well show you how to find the hide .git file on Windows, Mac OSX, Ubuntu

I'm running Windows 7 with git bash console. The above commands wouldn't work for me.

So I did it via Windows Explorer. I checked show hidden files, went to my projects directory and manually deleted the .git folder. Then back in the command line I checked by running git status.

Which returned...

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

Which is exactly the result I wanted. It returned that the directory is not a git repository (anymore!).

In PowerShel this is the way to do it:

Remove-Item ".git" -Force -Recurse

This is the shell the VSC uses.

Robert Thorne

Robert Thorne

Automotive & Future Transportation Editor

Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.

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