Retrieve a deleted stash

[Tushar Mathur]

I deleted the stash while applying. And then by mistake reverted everything. How can I get it back? Please help.

[stevestreeting · Accepted solution]

Unless you have a backup somewhere else, this is difficult. However stashes are stored as regular git objects and provided this was done recently then the commit object will still be there and not garbage collected yet, it just won't have any references to it.

You can list all unreachable commits , but you have to drop to the command line (click Terminal on the toolbar). Then type:

git fsck --unreachable

This will show you all the commits which are not reachable by a branch / tag and which haven't been garbage collected yet. Look for the ones that say 'unreachable commit', ignore the blobs. The chances are it will be the one closest the top, unless you've performed some other actions which created more unreachables. You can examine the commits by doing 'git show <sha>', and this should identify the stash, it'll probably be called 'On master: <your comment>' or similar. Once you've found it, copy the SHA.

To recover this you then do:

git stash apply <sha>

Which will bring it back into your working copy.

[Tushar Mathur]

Going through each commit through the terminal is quite combersome. But atleast there is a solution. Thanks :)

[John Fitzsimmons]

Very helpful. Just used this to help out a co-worker. Thank you! :-)

[sujit yadawad]

Worked like a charm.. Thanks a lot saved my 4 hours of work.. :)

[Louis Parsonson]

You sir, are my hero, thank you!

[Phung Lam]

You make my day sir, thanks a lot

[Kavya Rani]

Day saver. Thank you so much.

[Roy Brouwer]

Thank you!! Almost lost a day of work :) 

[anirudh reddy]

How to retrieve :

git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' | xargs git show > dangles.txt

search and select the commit you want and do below

git stash apply dec98ac9eb98abf94f43beecdf07f9c17e678ce1;

[addym55]

God bless u man, Thanks a lot 

[Jan Maške]

Thanks alot :)

[MVarga12]

Just saved my bacon, thank you.

[Madhu]

This was a life-saver ! Thanks !

[Danny Kjær]

Thank you so much for this answer!
This just saved me from a lot of headache.

It took a while for me to find the right commit, but I found it in the end. :)

[Константин Иванов]

Thank you very much! You saved day of my work!

[Musat Bogdan Ionut]

Thank you, sir!

[Levi Crain]

You Sir are a life saver.

[John Okoroafor]

Really Helpful. Thanks Alot.

[Aya Akl]

@anirudh reddy you saved my life today with your solution!!!! thanks a million

[Milenko_Brkovic]

Thanks! Helped me a lot!!!!!

[BertrandBucher]

This saved my day ! Thank you !!

[gutkol]

Thank you so much. Same problem I had today. For mistake I clicked delete stash and this answer helped me a lot!

[John Opferkuch]

Brilliant!  This outputs the details to a file so you can search for whatever you may have accidentally nuked. 

git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' | xargs git show > dangles.txt

[anirudh reddy]

How to retrieve :

git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' | xargs git show > dangles.txt

search and select the commit you want and do below

git stash apply dec98ac9eb98abf94f43beecdf07f9c17e678ce1;.

[Jake Blackwell]

Thank you for this so much!

[Asad Abbas]

thanks

[aryapratik7]

Thanks a lot for this. Saved my day.

[William McKeand]

Thank you!

[JHidalgo]

Thanks you for this! It saved my life!