How to Create a .gitignore File in Git

Create a .gitignore file in your Git repository root by adding file patterns you want Git to ignore. Use a text editor to list files or folders, one per line, and save it as .gitignore.

Syntax

The .gitignore file contains patterns that tell Git which files or folders to ignore. Each line is a pattern matching file names or directories.

• *.log ignores all files ending with .log.
• build/ ignores the entire build folder.
• !important.txt negates ignore and tracks important.txt.

gitignore

*.log
build/
!important.txt

Example

This example shows a .gitignore file that ignores log files, temporary files, and a build folder but tracks a specific config file.

gitignore

*.log
*.tmp
build/
!important.config

Output

If you run <code>git status</code>, files like <code>error.log</code>, <code>temp.tmp</code>, and anything inside <code>build/</code> will be ignored, but <code>important.config</code> will be tracked.

Common Pitfalls

Common mistakes include:

• Not placing the .gitignore file in the repository root.
• Trying to ignore files already tracked by Git (you must untrack them first).
• Using incorrect patterns that don’t match the intended files.

To stop tracking a file already committed, use git rm --cached filename.

gitignore

Wrong pattern example:
*.log/

Correct pattern:
*.log

Quick Reference

Here is a quick guide to common .gitignore patterns:

Pattern	Meaning
*.ext	Ignore all files with extension .ext
folder/	Ignore entire folder named 'folder'
!file.txt	Do not ignore file.txt even if matched by other rules
# comment	Line starting with # is a comment
/file	Ignore file in the root directory only

Key Takeaways

Create a .gitignore file in your repo root to list files Git should ignore.

Write one pattern per line to match files or folders to exclude.

Use ! to negate ignore rules for specific files.

Files already tracked must be untracked before .gitignore can ignore them.

Place .gitignore in the root for global effect in the repository.