Git Stash

We use git stash to store our changes when they are not ready to be committed and we need to change to a different branch.

  • Stash: 

    git stash save
# or
git stash
# or with a message
git stash save "this is a message to display on the list"

  • Apply stash to keep working on it: 

    git stash apply
# or apply a specific one from out stack
git stash apply stash@{3}

  • Every time we save a stash it gets stacked so by using list we can see all our stashes. 

    git stash list
# or for more information (log methods)
git stash list --stat

  • To clean our stack we need to manually remove them: 

    # drop top stash
git stash drop
# or
git stash drop <name>
# to clear all history we can use
git stash clear

  • Apply and drop on one command: 

    git stash pop
  • If we meet conflicts we need to either reset or commit our changes.
  • Conflicts through pop doesn’t drop a stash afterwards.

Git Stash sample workflow

  1. Modify a file
  2. Stage file
  3. Stash it
  4. View our stash list
  5. Confirm no pending changes through status
  6. Apply with pop
  7. View list to confirm changes 
# Modify edit_this_file.rb file
git add .

git stash save "Saving changes from edit this file"

git stash list
git status

git stash pop
git stash list
git status