Git Ignore Generator

A .gitignore file is a plain text file that tells Git which files and directories to ignore when tracking changes in a repository. Files listed in .gitignore are not staged, committed, or pushed to remote repositories, helping keep your repo clean from build artifacts, secrets, and OS-generated files.

Place the .gitignore file in the root directory of your Git repository. Git will automatically recognize it and apply the ignore rules to all files and subdirectories. You can also create .gitignore files in subdirectories to apply rules only to those directories.

This tool uses the gitignore.io API (hosted by Toptal). It is a widely trusted, community-maintained database of .gitignore templates for hundreds of languages, frameworks, editors, and operating systems. The API is free and requires no API key.

Yes! You can select as many templates as you need. The generator merges all selected templates into a single, well-organized .gitignore file. For example, you can combine "node", "react", "visualstudiocode", and "macos" in one file for a full-stack web project.

The gitignore.io database includes templates for programming languages (Python, Java, Go, Rust, C++, PHP, Ruby), frameworks (React, Angular, Vue, Django, Laravel, Rails, Spring), IDEs and editors (VS Code, JetBrains, Xcode, Eclipse, Vim), operating systems (macOS, Windows, Linux), and build tools (Gradle, Maven, CMake, Webpack).

You can still use this tool to generate a new one. If you want to merge the new rules with your existing .gitignore, simply copy the relevant sections from the generated file and append them to your current .gitignore. Avoid duplicate entries to keep the file clean.

If a file was already committed to Git before you added it to .gitignore, Git continues to track it. To fix this, untrack the file with: git rm --cached <file>. Then commit the change, and Git will stop tracking the file going forward.

Yes. The .gitignore file is a Git-native feature and works identically across all Git hosting platforms including GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, and any self-hosted Git server.

Absolutely. After generating the file, you can open it in any text editor and add, remove, or modify any rules to suit your project's specific needs. The generated file serves as a solid starting point with well-maintained community patterns.

.gitignore tells Git which files to exclude from tracking. .gitkeep is an empty placeholder file used inside otherwise empty directories to force Git to track those directories (since Git does not track empty directories on its own). They serve completely different purposes.

Yes. .gitignore supports glob patterns including * (match any sequence of characters), ** (match any number of directories), ? (match a single character), and character ranges like [abc]. For example, *.log ignores all log files, and build/ ignores the entire build directory.

Use the .git/info/exclude file in your local repository. Rules placed there apply only to your local clone and are never committed or shared with teammates. This is ideal for IDE-specific files that only you use.