Force git stash to overwrite added files

I have some files which were untracked in git. I made some changes and wanted to commit them, but realised I had forgotten to check in the unmodified files first. So I stashed the files, then added the unmodified versions.

Then when I apply the stash to the repository, I get conflicts due to the files having already been added.

How can I apply the stash, and force the versions in the stash to be used in preference to the originals in the repository?

Thanks

5 Answers

Use git checkout instead of git stash apply.

WARNING: The command below will restore all the files in the current directory (.) to their stashed version. If you have uncommitted or unstaged changes, they will be permanently lost:

• If you edited files after creating the stash, those changes will be lost.
• If you only stashed specific files (using git stash push <pathspec>... or git stash -p), do not use this command because changes in all other files will be lost.

Use git status to check that there are no uncommitted or unstaged changes before running this command.

# WARNING: uncommitted/unstaged changes will be permanently lost $ git checkout stash -- . $ git commit 

If there are changes to other files in the working directory that should be kept, here is a less heavy-handed alternative:

$ git merge --squash --strategy-option=theirs stash 

If there are changes in the index, or the merge will touch files with local changes, git will refuse to merge. Individual files can be checked out from the stash using

$ git checkout stash -- <paths...> 

or interactively with

$ git checkout -p stash 

git stash show -p | git apply

and then git stash drop if you want to drop the stashed items.

To force git stash pop run this command

git stash show -p | git apply && git stash drop 

TL;DR:

git checkout HEAD path/to/file git stash apply 

Long version:

You get this error because of the uncommited changes that you want to overwrite. Undo these changes with git checkout HEAD. You can undo changes to a specific file with git checkout HEAD path/to/file. After removing the cause of the conflict, you can apply as usual.

Keep local source backup then apply force reset to align with GIT repo. Then change your local code and commit.

git reset --hard FETCH_HEAD