---
title: "git find deleted files"
description: "It's nearly impossible to completely loose a file if it is commited to git. It's likely harder to fully remove the file than it is to recover it, but how do..."
date: 2022-02-28
published: false
tags:
  - git
template: til
---


It's nearly impossible to completely loose a file if it is commited to git.
It's  likely harder to fully remove the file than it is to recover it, but how
do we go about recovering those precious files that we have lost.

Listing all the deleted files in all of git history can be done by
combining `git log` with `--diff-filter`.  The log gives you lots of
options to show different bits of information about the commit that
happened at that point.  It's even possible to get a completely clean
list of files that are in your git history but have been deleted.

## git log --diff-filter

These various commands will show all files that were ever deleted on
your current branch.

``` bash
# This one includes the date, commit hash, and Author
git log --diff-filter D

# this one could be a git alias, but includes empty lines
git log --diff-filter D --pretty="format:" --name-only

# this one has the empty lines cleaned up
git log --diff-filter D --pretty="format:" --name-only | sed '/^$/d'
```

<a href="/git-diff-filter/" class="wikilink" data-title="git diff-filter" data-description="Git commands such as , , all take a flag called . This can filter for only certain types of diffs, such as added (A), modified (M), or deleted (D)." data-date="2022-02-27">git diff-filter</a>

## git reflog --diff-filter

The reflog can be super powerful in finding lost files here, as it only
cares about git operations, not just the current branch.  It will search
accross all branches for deleted files and report them.

``` bash
# This one includes the commit hash, branch, tag, and commit message
git reflog --diff-filter D

# You might want to at least add the filename
git reflog --diff-filter D --name-only

# this one could be a git alias, but includes empty lines
git reflog --diff-filter D --pretty="format:" --name-only

# this one has the empty lines cleaned up
git reflog --diff-filter D --pretty="format:" --name-only | sed '/^$/d'
```

## get the last commit from a file

``` bash
git log -n 1 --pretty=format:%H -- file
```

If you want dont like how the output looks or you want your default pager to be
different you can configure the default pager see <a href="/git-pager/" class="wikilink" data-title="Set Your Git Pager Config" data-description="Setting up your git pager to your liking can help you navigate diffs and logs much more efficiently. You can set it to whatever pager you like so that your..." data-date="2022-03-16">Set Your Git Pager Config</a>.