Recover deleted files that were not committed.

[Andrew Mills]

Good day, in order to not loose a couple days worth of work. I need to recover 2 files that were accidentally removed through the 'right-click, remove file' feature source tree has.  

Idelly if sourcetree were to throw the 'removed' files into the trashcan, than my situation would be resolved.

Also, if source tree were to stash said new files than i could revert back to a stashed file, but it doesn't appear like that is the case.


Does anyone have any tips or tricks on recovering a file that was never committed (but it was stashed multiple times).  When i 'apply' said stash to my local repository, I don't see the file. 

Help please 

[Seth · Accepted solution]

SourceTree has nothing to help with this unfortunately. If you staged the file, there might be a way to retrieve it from the git index (using "git reflog", you may need to go to a git forum, since this is advanced usage).

If you did not even stage the files, your best bet is to google for file recovery tools ASAP.

[Andrew Mills]

Aye sir, unfortunately it looks like i'll be rebuilding that work.

On the upside, I can now rebuild it better. hahahaha... 


Recuva was a software I attempted but nothing. I even went into windows previous versions and nothing.  Oh well.  Thanks for the quick response.

[Tim Crall]

Was this on a Mac?  It would be nice if SourceTree did move the files to the trashcan instead of deleting them at a system level, but it's probably just using "git rm" or the system "rm".

But you should have seen a pretty explicit warning, right?Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 9.21.20 AM.png

[Andrew Mills]

it was on PC.  and yes i did get the warning, ijust didn't realize that I had selected the file.. you know Shift click... foolish mistake. 

[Tim Crall]

Still, I agree with you that it would be really nice functionality if SourceTree used the recycling bin / trashcan instead of deleting files directly.  This questions come up here with some regularity, so it would probably make a really good feature request at jira.atlassian.com (if it's not already there - and I see it is...)

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/SRCTREEWIN-2560

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/SRCTREEWIN-3822 is different but similar

Doesn't sound like they're inclined to implement it.  Pity.

[Trevin Wisaksana]

Sourcetree is shit. That's the problem.

Cmd + Backspace deletes a file. On a Mac, Cmd + Backspace clears a text field. When committing a file a pressing Cmd + Backspace to delete the commit messages, I had multiple occasions where I deleted the files by accident.

Cheap ass Sourcetree. Use Github. #switchToGithub