3 How to Create and Use a .gitignore File

Any files and folders that you choose can be hidden from Git and not tracked at all. The contents of the .gitignore file is what dictates what is tracked by Git and what is not. To hide the .pyc files from Git, create a file called .gitignore in the project root and add *.pyc in one line by doing:

echo "*.pyc" > .gitignore

This will put anything inside the double quotes in a new file called (in this case) .gitignore.

The database file could also be added to the .gitignore file but for this there is an extra step because the file has already been committed in to the remote repository. To stop a file like this from being tracked by Git:

git rm --cached db.sqlite3

This will make Git ignore this file now but it will not remove it from the computer!

Now just make a commit and push to update the remote branch with those changes:

git status
git add -A
git commit -m "Added .gitignore file, removed database"
git push origin master