How can I list all the deleted files in a Git repository?

Question

I know Git stores information of when files get deleted and I am able to check individual commits to see which files have been removed, but is there a command that would generate a list of every deleted file across a repository's lifespan?

For anyone stumbling upon this answer but just looking to see a list of files added, renamed, deleted, modified, etc, from one commit hash or branch to another, do this: `git diff --name-status commit_hash`. — Gabriel Staples, Mar 30 '20 at 23:09

score 518 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

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git log --diff-filter=D --summary

See Find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository

If you don't want all the information about which commit they were removed in, you can just add a grep delete in there.

git log --diff-filter=D --summary | grep delete

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered May 16 '11 at 13:19

I82Much

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**Warning:** This lists any files you've deleted. If you've deleted a file, then created a new file with the same name, it **will** show up on this list, even though there's an extant file there. – T.J. Crowder Aug 09 '14 at 08:43
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You should also look at the **git whatchanged** command. It's pretty cool. – Mr.Black Mar 19 '15 at 19:30
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This would list also the renames as deletes. To skip these use `git log --find-renames --diff-filter=D --summary | grep delete` – Slaven Rezic Jul 21 '15 at 13:00
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With git 2.9 detection of renames is activated by default. To see these again as deletes use ``git log --no-renames --diff-filter=D --summary | grep delete`` – Michael Große Jun 30 '16 at 10:53
If you know the name of the file then this will give a bit more context (15 lines +/-) around the results: `git log --diff-filter=D --summary | grep -15 ` – gArn Jun 22 '18 at 11:09
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Beware using `grep delete` because if the commit message has the word delete, it'll be picked up as well. Use `grep 'delete mode'` instead. – Vadim Jan 10 '19 at 19:11
This does not list files, only the commits that contains changes of those files. The answer by Mark Longair does the right thing. – Jaap Eldering Apr 02 '20 at 16:11
it worked! How to show the log from a specific folder? I tried '-- folder' and doen't seems to work – Taison Morris Apr 30 '20 at 19:01
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@Mr.Black `man git whatchanged` recommends `git log` instead for general use: “New users are encouraged to use git-log(1) instead. … The command is kept primarily for historical reasons”. I would use `git log --patch` instead. – Guildenstern Oct 16 '20 at 13:21

score 107 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 05 '22 at 05:05

This does what you want, I think:

git log --all --pretty=format: --name-only --diff-filter=D | sort -u

... which I've just taken more-or-less directly from this other answer.

This prints only file paths without other info:

BETA.md
CONTRIBUTING.md
files/en-us/api/file_api/index.html
files/en-us/games/index/index.md
files/en-us/games/visual-js_game_engine/index.html
files/en-us/games/visual_js_ge/index.html
files/en-us/games/visual_typescript_game_engine/index.html
...

Jim Clouse · Answer 3 · 2014-04-25T02:10:57.077

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If you're only interested in seeing the currently deleted files, you can use this:

git ls-files --deleted

if you then want to remove them (in case you deleted them not using "git rm") pipe that result to xargs git rm

git ls-files --deleted | xargs git rm

edited Apr 25 '14 at 02:10

answered Feb 17 '12 at 15:23

Jim Clouse

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This shows only files in the index that have been deleted in the working copy. The OP wants all files that have ever been deleted. – Max Nanasy Sep 25 '12 at 20:58
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or `git rm $(git ls-files --deleted)` – yunzen Jul 08 '15 at 12:42
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even though it's not what the OP wanted, this was still useful for at least myself, since I had trouble phrasing my query properly in a search – solstice333 Aug 08 '19 at 00:17

score 21 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 28 '21 at 22:17

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Citing this Stack Overflow answer.

It is a pretty neat way to get type-of-change (A:Added, M:Modified, D:Deleted) for each file that got changed.

git diff --name-status HEAD~1000

edited Sep 28 '21 at 22:17

Sridhar Sarnobat

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answered May 05 '15 at 10:41

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 23 '12 at 09:56

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And if you want to somehow constrain the results here's a nice one:

$ git log --diff-filter=D --summary | sed -n '/^commit/h;/\/some_dir\//{G;s/\ncommit \(.*\)/ \1/gp}'
delete mode 100644 blah/some_dir/file1 d3bfbbeba5b5c1da73c432cb3fb61990bdcf6f64
delete mode 100644 blah/some_dir/file2 d3bfbbeba5b5c1da73c432cb3fb61990bdcf6f64
delete mode 100644 blah/some_dir/file3 9c89b91d8df7c95c6043184154c476623414fcb7

You'll get all files deleted from some_dir (see the sed command) together with the commit number in which it happen. Any sed regex will do (I use this to find deleted file types, etc)

answered Oct 23 '12 at 09:56

estani

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I believe that's way to complicated to be useful in daily developer life. Instead, if you want to list files deleted from current directory, just do: `git log --diff-filter=D .` – Sebi Sep 23 '15 at 07:07
The case I had was that the directory was also removed and I just new part of the name. – estani Sep 23 '15 at 10:13

James Skemp · Answer 6 · 2016-12-22T15:40:18.717

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Since Windows doesn't have a grep command, this worked for me in PowerShell:

git log --find-renames --diff-filter=D --summary | Select-String -Pattern "delete mode" | sort -u > deletions.txt

edited Dec 22 '16 at 15:40

answered Dec 22 '16 at 15:15

James Skemp

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What is `Select-String`? – MarcusJ Dec 15 '17 at 12:03
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It's a PowerShell cmdlet. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/select-string?view=powershell-5.1 – James Skemp Dec 15 '17 at 17:03
Windows has [FIND](https://ss64.com/nt/find.html) and [FINDSTR](https://ss64.com/nt/findstr.html), though I must admit I have never used them. Installing [Git Bash](https://superuser.com/questions/1053633/what-is-git-bash-for-windows-anyway) is the easiest way. An alternative is the bloated [Cygwin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin). – Peter Mortensen May 13 '20 at 22:56

score 5 · Answer 7 · edited Oct 09 '19 at 18:19

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Show all deleted files in some_branch

git diff origin/master...origin/some_branch --name-status | grep ^D

or

git diff origin/master...origin/some_branch --name-status --diff-filter=D

edited Oct 09 '19 at 18:19

pfrenssen

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answered May 20 '19 at 08:01

vix2

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This wouldn't work because it would contain all files with a D in them. You need something like `git diff origin/master...origin/some_branch --name-status | grep ^D` or `git diff origin/master...origin/some_branch --name-status --diff-filter=D` – nathaneastwood Jul 05 '19 at 14:16

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 20 '16 at 18:34

This will get you a list of all files that were deleted in all branches, sorted by their path:

git log --diff-filter=D --summary | grep "delete mode 100" | cut -c 21- | sort > deleted.txt

Works in msysgit (2.6.1.windows.1). Note we need "delete mode 100" as git files may have been commited as mode 100644 or 100755.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Dec 05 '21 at 23:40

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If you want the names purely separated by a newline character, you can use the --name-only flag like this:

git diff --diff-filter=D --name-only <old-commit-hash> <new-commit-hash>

answered Dec 05 '21 at 23:40

Aman Kumar

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How can I list all the deleted files in a Git repository?

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