Can you have additional .gitignore per directory within a single repo?

Question

Can you create a .gitignore file in a directory that only applies to files (and directories) within that directory?

score 225 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 16 '12 at 07:22

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Yes, you can. Try it, it works fine. Put a .gitignore in the root of your repo, and put another .gitignore with additional things to ignore in a subdirectory.

answered Mar 16 '12 at 07:22

Mike Morearty

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Does the .gitignore in the subdirectory replace the root .gitignore? Or does it add to it? – dsula Oct 20 '21 at 13:54
@dsula the .gitignore in the subdirectory adds to the root .gitignore (does not just replace it). – Mike Morearty Mar 12 '22 at 00:13

score 12 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

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Similar question was: Are multiple `.gitignore`s frowned on? (Jul 2010)

Or if you can have different version of a .gitignore file per branch: Using github to host public git repositories whilst ensuring that sensitive data files remain untracked (Feb 2010)

Further perhaps related: How do I tell git to always select my local version for conflicted merges on a specific file?

edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Community

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answered Mar 16 '12 at 01:13

Tats_innit

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 16 '12 at 01:27

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You can just specify files to ignore in a format such as

Xyz/*.abc

in the .gitignore in the root directory, potentially removing the need for separate ignore files.

answered Mar 16 '12 at 01:27

learnvst

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Can you have additional .gitignore per directory within a single repo?

3 Answers3

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