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HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OUTPUT | CONFIGURATION | BACKGROUND REFRESH | UNTRACKED FILES AND PERFORMANCE | SEE ALSO | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-STATUS(1) Git Manual GIT-STATUS(1)
git-status - Show the working tree status
git status [<options>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
Displays paths that have differences between the index file and
the current HEAD commit, paths that have differences between the
working tree and the index file, and paths in the working tree
that are not tracked by Git (and are not ignored by gitignore(5)).
The first are what you would commit by running git commit; the
second and third are what you could commit by running git add
before running git commit.
-s, --short
Give the output in the short-format.
-b, --branch
Show the branch and tracking info even in short-format.
--show-stash
Show the number of entries currently stashed away.
--porcelain[=<version>]
Give the output in an easy-to-parse format for scripts. This
is similar to the short output, but will remain stable across
Git versions and regardless of user configuration. See below
for details.
The <version> parameter is used to specify the format version.
This is optional and defaults to the original version v1
format.
--long
Give the output in the long-format. This is the default.
-v, --verbose
In addition to the names of files that have been changed, also
show the textual changes that are staged to be committed
(i.e., like the output of git diff --cached). If -v is
specified twice, then also show the changes in the working
tree that have not yet been staged (i.e., like the output of
git diff).
-u[<mode>], --untracked-files[=<mode>]
Show untracked files.
The mode parameter is used to specify the handling of
untracked files. It is optional: it defaults to all, and if
specified, it must be stuck to the option (e.g. -uno, but not
-u no).
The possible options are:
no
Show no untracked files.
normal
Show untracked files and directories.
all
Also show individual files in untracked directories.
When -u option is not used, untracked files and directories
are shown (i.e. the same as specifying normal), to help you
avoid forgetting to add newly created files. Because it takes
extra work to find untracked files in the filesystem, this
mode may take some time in a large working tree. Consider
enabling untracked cache and split index if supported (see git
update-index --untracked-cache and git update-index
--split-index), Otherwise you can use no to have git status
return more quickly without showing untracked files. All usual
spellings for Boolean value true are taken as normal and false
as no.
The default can be changed using the status.showUntrackedFiles
configuration variable documented in git-config(1).
--ignore-submodules[=<when>]
Ignore changes to submodules when looking for changes. <when>
can be either none, untracked, dirty or all, which is the
default.
none
will consider the submodule modified when it either
contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs
from the commit recorded in the superproject and can be
used to override any settings of the ignore option in
git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
untracked
submodules are not considered dirty when they only contain
untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
content).
dirty
ignore all changes to the work tree of submodules, only
changes to the commits stored in the superproject are
shown (this was the behavior before 1.7.0).
all
hide all changes to submodules (and suppresses the output
of submodule summaries when the config option
status.submoduleSummary is set).
--ignored[=<mode>]
Show ignored files as well.
The mode parameter is used to specify the handling of ignored
files. It is optional: it defaults to traditional.
The possible options are:
traditional
Show ignored files and directories, unless
--untracked-files=all is specified, in which case
individual files in ignored directories are displayed.
no
Show no ignored files.
matching
Show ignored files and directories matching an ignore
pattern.
Paths that explicitly match an ignored pattern are shown.
If a directory matches an ignore pattern, then it is
shown, but not paths contained in the ignored directory.
If a directory does not match an ignore pattern, but all
contents are ignored, then the directory is not shown, but
all contents are shown.
-z
Terminate entries with NUL, instead of LF. This implies the
--porcelain=v1 output format if no other format is given.
--column[=<options>], --no-column
Display untracked files in columns. See configuration variable
column.status for option syntax. --column and --no-column
without options are equivalent to always and never
respectively.
--ahead-behind, --no-ahead-behind
Display or do not display detailed ahead/behind counts for the
branch relative to its upstream branch. Defaults to true.
--renames, --no-renames
Turn on/off rename detection regardless of user configuration.
See also git-diff(1) --no-renames.
--find-renames[=<n>]
Turn on rename detection, optionally setting the similarity
threshold. See also git-diff(1) --find-renames.
<pathspec>...
See the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
The output from this command is designed to be used as a commit
template comment. The default, long format, is designed to be
human readable, verbose and descriptive. Its contents and format
are subject to change at any time.
The paths mentioned in the output, unlike many other Git commands,
are made relative to the current directory if you are working in a
subdirectory (this is on purpose, to help cutting and pasting).
See the status.relativePaths config option below.
Short Format
In the short-format, the status of each path is shown as one of
these forms
<xy> <path>
<xy> <orig-path> -> <path>
where <orig-path> is where the renamed/copied contents came from.
<orig-path> is only shown when the entry is renamed or copied. The
<xy> is a two-letter status code XY.
The fields (including the ->) are separated from each other by a
single space. If a filename contains whitespace or other
nonprintable characters, that field will be quoted in the manner
of a C string literal: surrounded by ASCII double quote (34)
characters, and with interior special characters
backslash-escaped.
There are three different types of states that are shown using
this format, and each one uses the <xy> syntax differently:
• When a merge is occurring and the merge was successful, or
outside of a merge situation, X shows the status of the index
and Y shows the status of the working tree.
• When a merge conflict has occurred and has not yet been
resolved, X and Y show the state introduced by each head of
the merge, relative to the common ancestor. These paths are
said to be unmerged.
• When a path is untracked, X and Y are always the same, since
they are unknown to the index. ?? is used for untracked paths.
Ignored files are not listed unless --ignored is used; if it
is, ignored files are indicated by !!.
Note that the term merge here also includes rebases using the
default --merge strategy, cherry-picks, and anything else using
the merge machinery.
In the following table, these three classes are shown in separate
sections, and these characters are used for X and Y fields for the
first two sections that show tracked paths:
' '
unmodified
M
modified
T
file type changed (regular file, symbolic link or submodule)
A
added
D
deleted
R
renamed
C
copied (if config option status.renames is set to "copies")
U
updated but unmerged
┌──────────┬────────┬────────────────────┐
│ X │ Y │ Meaning │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ │ [AMD] │ not updated │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ M │ [ MTD] │ updated in index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ T │ [ MTD] │ type changed in │
│ │ │ index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ A │ [ MTD] │ added to index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ D │ │ deleted from index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ R │ [ MTD] │ renamed in index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ C │ [ MTD] │ copied in index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ [MTARC] │ │ index and work │
│ │ │ tree matches │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ [ MTARC] │ M │ work tree changed │
│ │ │ since index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ [ MTARC] │ T │ type changed in │
│ │ │ work tree since │
│ │ │ index │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ [ MTARC] │ D │ deleted in work │
│ │ │ tree │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ │ R │ renamed in work │
│ │ │ tree │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ │ C │ copied in work │
│ │ │ tree │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ D │ D │ unmerged, both │
│ │ │ deleted │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ A │ U │ unmerged, added by │
│ │ │ us │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ U │ D │ unmerged, deleted │
│ │ │ by them │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ U │ A │ unmerged, added by │
│ │ │ them │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ D │ U │ unmerged, deleted │
│ │ │ by us │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ A │ A │ unmerged, both │
│ │ │ added │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ U │ U │ unmerged, both │
│ │ │ modified │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ ? │ ? │ untracked │
├──────────┼────────┼────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│ ! │ ! │ ignored │
└──────────┴────────┴────────────────────┘
Submodules have more state and instead report
M
the submodule has a different HEAD than recorded in the index
m
the submodule has modified content
?
the submodule has untracked files
This is since modified content or untracked files in a submodule
cannot be added via git add in the superproject to prepare a
commit.
m and ? are applied recursively. For example if a nested submodule
in a submodule contains an untracked file, this is reported as ?
as well.
If -b is used the short-format status is preceded by a line
## <branchname> <tracking-info>
Porcelain Format Version 1
Version 1 porcelain format is similar to the short format, but is
guaranteed not to change in a backwards-incompatible way between
Git versions or based on user configuration. This makes it ideal
for parsing by scripts. The description of the short format above
also describes the porcelain format, with a few exceptions:
1. The user’s color.status configuration is not respected; color
will always be off.
2. The user’s status.relativePaths configuration is not
respected; paths shown will always be relative to the
repository root.
There is also an alternate -z format recommended for machine
parsing. In that format, the status field is the same, but some
other things change. First, the -> is omitted from rename entries
and the field order is reversed (e.g from -> to becomes to from).
Second, a NUL (ASCII 0) follows each filename, replacing space as
a field separator and the terminating newline (but a space still
separates the status field from the first filename). Third,
filenames containing special characters are not specially
formatted; no quoting or backslash-escaping is performed.
Any submodule changes are reported as modified M instead of m or
single ?.
Porcelain Format Version 2
Version 2 format adds more detailed information about the state of
the worktree and changed items. Version 2 also defines an
extensible set of easy to parse optional headers.
Header lines start with # and are added in response to specific
command line arguments. Parsers should ignore headers they don’t
recognize.
Branch Headers
If --branch is given, a series of header lines are printed
with information about the current branch.
┌──────────────────────────┬────────────────────────┐
│ Line │ Notes │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ # branch.oid <commit> | │ Current commit. │
│ (initial) │ │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ # branch.head <branch> | │ Current branch. │
│ (detached) │ │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ # branch.upstream │ If upstream is set. │
│ <upstream-branch> │ │
├──────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ # branch.ab +<ahead> │ If upstream is set and │
│ -<behind> │ the commit is present. │
└──────────────────────────┴────────────────────────┘
Stash Information
If --show-stash is given, one line is printed showing the
number of stash entries if non-zero:
# stash <N>
Changed Tracked Entries
Following the headers, a series of lines are printed for
tracked entries. One of three different line formats may be
used to describe an entry depending on the type of change.
Tracked entries are printed in an undefined order; parsers
should allow for a mixture of the 3 line types in any order.
Ordinary changed entries have the following format:
1 <XY> <sub> <mH> <mI> <mW> <hH> <hI> <path>
Renamed or copied entries have the following format:
2 <XY> <sub> <mH> <mI> <mW> <hH> <hI> <X><score> <path><sep><origPath>
┌────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
│ Field │ Meaning │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <XY> │ A 2 character field │
│ │ containing the staged │
│ │ and unstaged XY values │
│ │ described in the short │
│ │ format, with unchanged │
│ │ indicated by a "." │
│ │ rather than a space. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <sub> │ A 4 character field │
│ │ describing the submodule │
│ │ state. "N..." when the │
│ │ entry is not a │
│ │ submodule. S<c><m><u> │
│ │ when the entry is a │
│ │ submodule. │
│ │ │
│ │ │
│ │ • <c> is │
│ │ "C" if │
│ │ the │
│ │ commit │
│ │ changed; │
│ │ otherwise │
│ │ ".". │
│ │ │
│ │ • <m> is │
│ │ "M" if it │
│ │ has │
│ │ tracked │
│ │ changes; │
│ │ otherwise │
│ │ ".". │
│ │ │
│ │ • <u> is │
│ │ "U" if │
│ │ there are │
│ │ untracked │
│ │ changes; │
│ │ otherwise │
│ │ ".". │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <mH> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ HEAD. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <mI> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ the index. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <mW> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ the worktree. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <hH> │ The object name in HEAD. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <hI> │ The object name in the │
│ │ index. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <X><score> │ The rename or copy score │
│ │ (denoting the percentage │
│ │ of similarity between │
│ │ the source and target of │
│ │ the move or copy). For │
│ │ example "R100" or "C75". │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <path> │ The pathname. In a │
│ │ renamed/copied entry, │
│ │ this is the target path. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <sep> │ When the -z option is │
│ │ used, the 2 pathnames │
│ │ are separated with a NUL │
│ │ (ASCII 0x00) byte; │
│ │ otherwise, a TAB (ASCII │
│ │ 0x09) byte separates │
│ │ them. │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <origPath> │ The pathname in the │
│ │ commit at HEAD or in the │
│ │ index. This is only │
│ │ present in a │
│ │ renamed/copied entry, │
│ │ and tells where the │
│ │ renamed/copied contents │
│ │ came from. │
└────────────┴──────────────────────────┘
Unmerged entries have the following format; the first
character is a "u" to distinguish from ordinary changed
entries.
u <XY> <sub> <m1> <m2> <m3> <mW> <h1> <h2> <h3> <path>
┌────────┬──────────────────────────┐
│ Field │ Meaning │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <XY> │ A 2 character field │
│ │ describing the conflict │
│ │ type as described in the │
│ │ short format. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <sub> │ A 4 character field │
│ │ describing the submodule │
│ │ state as described │
│ │ above. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <m1> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ stage 1. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <m2> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ stage 2. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <m3> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ stage 3. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <mW> │ The octal file mode in │
│ │ the worktree. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <h1> │ The object name in stage │
│ │ 1. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <h2> │ The object name in stage │
│ │ 2. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <h3> │ The object name in stage │
│ │ 3. │
├────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ │ │
│ <path> │ The pathname. │
└────────┴──────────────────────────┘
Other Items
Following the tracked entries (and if requested), a series of
lines will be printed for untracked and then ignored items
found in the worktree.
Untracked items have the following format:
? <path>
Ignored items have the following format:
! <path>
Pathname Format Notes and -z
When the -z option is given, pathnames are printed as is and
without any quoting and lines are terminated with a NUL (ASCII
0x00) byte.
Without the -z option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are
quoted as explained for the configuration variable
core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
The command honors color.status (or status.color — they mean the
same thing and the latter is kept for backward compatibility) and
color.status.<slot> configuration variables to colorize its
output.
If the config variable status.relativePaths is set to false, then
all paths shown are relative to the repository root, not to the
current directory.
If status.submoduleSummary is set to a non zero number or true
(identical to -1 or an unlimited number), the submodule summary
will be enabled for the long format and a summary of commits for
modified submodules will be shown (see --summary-limit option of
git-submodule(1)). Please note that the summary output from the
status command will be suppressed for all submodules when
diff.ignoreSubmodules is set to all or only for those submodules
where submodule.<name>.ignore=all. To also view the summary for
ignored submodules you can either use the
--ignore-submodules=dirty command line option or the git submodule
summary command, which shows a similar output but does not honor
these settings.
By default, git status will automatically refresh the index,
updating the cached stat information from the working tree and
writing out the result. Writing out the updated index is an
optimization that isn’t strictly necessary (status computes the
values for itself, but writing them out is just to save subsequent
programs from repeating our computation). When status is run in
the background, the lock held during the write may conflict with
other simultaneous processes, causing them to fail. Scripts
running status in the background should consider using git
--no-optional-locks status (see git(1) for details).
git status can be very slow in large worktrees if/when it needs to
search for untracked files and directories. There are many
configuration options available to speed this up by either
avoiding the work or making use of cached results from previous
Git commands. There is no single optimum set of settings right for
everyone. We’ll list a summary of the relevant options to help
you, but before going into the list, you may want to run git
status again, because your configuration may already be caching
git status results, so it could be faster on subsequent runs.
• The --untracked-files=no flag or the
status.showUntrackedFiles=no config (see above for both):
indicate that git status should not report untracked files.
This is the fastest option. git status will not list the
untracked files, so you need to be careful to remember if you
create any new files and manually git add them.
• advice.statusUoption=false (see git-config(1)): setting this
variable to false disables the warning message given when
enumerating untracked files takes more than 2 seconds. In a
large project, it may take longer and the user may have
already accepted the trade off (e.g. using -uno may not be an
acceptable option for the user), in which case, there is no
point issuing the warning message, and in such a case,
disabling the warning may be the best.
• core.untrackedCache=true (see git-update-index(1)): enable the
untracked cache feature and only search directories that have
been modified since the previous git status command. Git
remembers the set of untracked files within each directory and
assumes that if a directory has not been modified, then the
set of untracked files within has not changed. This is much
faster than enumerating the contents of every directory, but
still not without cost, because Git still has to search for
the set of modified directories. The untracked cache is stored
in the .git/index file. The reduced cost of searching for
untracked files is offset slightly by the increased size of
the index and the cost of keeping it up-to-date. That reduced
search time is usually worth the additional size.
• core.untrackedCache=true and core.fsmonitor=true or
core.fsmonitor=<hook-command-pathname> (see
git-update-index(1)): enable both the untracked cache and
FSMonitor features and only search directories that have been
modified since the previous git status command. This is faster
than using just the untracked cache alone because Git can also
avoid searching for modified directories. Git only has to
enumerate the exact set of directories that have changed
recently. While the FSMonitor feature can be enabled without
the untracked cache, the benefits are greatly reduced in that
case.
Note that after you turn on the untracked cache and/or FSMonitor
features it may take a few git status commands for the various
caches to warm up before you see improved command times. This is
normal.
gitignore(5)
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2026-01-16. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2026-01-15.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.53.0.rc0 2026-01-15 GIT-STATUS(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-add(1), git-commit(1), git-config(1), git-ls-files(1), git-submodule(1), giteveryday(7)
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HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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