Please move or remove them before you switch branches - simple way to solve it

Question

I get an error

error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout:
  source/a/foo.c
  ...... (too many lines)
 Please move or remove them before you can switch branches.
 Aborting

when trying to undefined. How to fix the please move or remove them before you switch branches error? Please give me some advice.

dttutoria · Accepted Answer

The cause: The document are untracked, and git rm --cached is unable to locate them because they are not in the index. That is the cause of the error "Please move or remove them before you switch branches".

Solution: Simply delete them using rm or your file manager. The checkout process should then go normally. It's worth noting that git status will show you how git perceives the files (tracked, changed, untracked; It will also indicate files that have been ignored if you select an extra option).

git switch -f master

Mia Payet · Answer

git checkout -f master

-f and --force

Source: https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-checkout.html

When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the working tree differs from HEAD. This is used to throw away local changes.

When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.

Willa O'Sullivan · Answer

This would be Git 2.23 (August 2019), using git switch -f

git switch -f master

This avoids confusion with git checkout, which deals with files and branches.

This will continue, even if HEAD is different from the index or working tree. The index and the working tree have been restored to meet the switching target.
When --recurse-submodules is used, submodule content will also be restored to match the switching target.
This is used for throwing away local changes.

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Please move or remove them before you switch branches – simple way to solve it