Compare `git add .` vs `git add -A`

comparing-git-add-all.md

git add . vs git add -A

Both of these will stage all files, including new files (which git commit -a misses) and deleted files.

The difference is that git add -A also stages files in higher directories that still belong to the same git repository. Here's an example:

/my-repo
  .git/
  subfolder/
    nestedfile.txt
  rootfile.txt

If your current working directory is /my-repo, and that's the root of this git repo (thus the .git/ folder), these two commands will do the same thing.

But if you rm rootfile.txt, then cd subfolder, git add . will not stage the change that ../rootfile.txt has been deleted, because git add . only affects the current directory and subdirectories. git add -A, on the other hand, will stage this change.

Thanks for the quick clarification, very helpful 🙂

good explanation 👍

thank you! simple and to the point explanation!

nice!

tx

thanks

Thanks very much for this explanation

help a lot

Thank you :)

Thank you!

Thank You 👍

👍

Thanks!

👍

thanks for the explanations

Seems your example isn't great: git add . doesn't stage deletions, git add -A does.

Thanks!

Thanks! 👍

@NathanSweet: I believe git add . does stage deletions.

Can you describe an example to clarify?

thanks

Thank you, this is a very good explanation!

Thanks for the great explanation! I just ran into this issue yesterday and didn't know why my upper level files were not being added.

thanks so much!

ty

thx

thanks

Thank you for the explanation!

Obrigada, Thank you :)

Thanks

This gist is still great years later :) Thank you!