Finding And Restoring A Deleted File In Git

### TL;DR

If you delete a file and need to restore it but don't know the path you can search for it with the argument to the last `grep` in this command:

Code

git log --diff-filter=D --summary --reverse | grep delete | grep scss

Once you find the filepath you're after, look for the commits that affected it with:

Code

git log --summary --reverse -- <FILE_PATH>

Find the commit where you deleted the file and pull it back by using `~1` after the commit ID.

Code

git checkout <COMMIT_ID>~1 -- <FILE_PATH>

At that point, it'll be staged in your existing branch and ready to commit.

I did a Digital Garden redesign of my site a few weeks ago. I switched over to Tailwind for CSS during the process. When I made the jump, I remove my old CSS files. Today, I realized that my custom code syntax highlighting was part of the purge. Here's how I got it back.

My site is stored in a git repository. I wasn't sure what the file was named, but I new it was a SCSS file and had that extension. So, I ran this command to get the file name:

Code

git log --diff-filter=D --summary --reverse | grep delete | grep scss

Where:

- `git log` outputs the logs of the repo - `--diff-filter=D` limits the logs to just the deletes - `--summary` changes the output format so that includes the actions on the specific files that were modified.

For example, `git log` without `--summary` produces this:

Code

commit 64965cde047d066b8b1962905652c26c4b454813
Author: Alan W. Smith <user@example.com>
Date:   Mon Dec 21 20:57:15 2020 -0500

    Deployment Auto Commit    

With `--summary` that turns into:

commit 64965cde047d066b8b1962905652c26c4b454813
Author: Alan W. Smith <user@example.com>
Date:   Mon Dec 21 20:57:15 2020 -0500

    Deployment Auto Commit

 delete mode 100644 prod/themes/tale-aws/assets/css/tale/webmentions.scss

- `--reverse` flips the order of the output so that the most recently deleted files are at the end of the run (which makes them easier to find). - `grep delete` pull out just the lines with the file paths in them. So, instead of:

Code

commit 64965cde047d066b8b1962905652c26c4b454813
Author: Alan W. Smith <user@example.com>
Date:   Mon Dec 21 20:57:15 2020 -0500

    Deployment Auto Commit

    delete mode 100644 prod/themes/tale-aws/assets/css/tale/webmentions.scss

We get simply:

Code

delete mode 100644 prod/themes/tale-aws/assets/css/tale/webmentions.scss

- And finally, `grep scss` is what I used to find the SCSS files.

Scrolling back through the output, I found the file I was after:

Code

delete mode 100644 prod/themes/tale-aws_2020-10-23/assets/scss/tale/_syntax.scss

Now I've got the filename and can search for the commits the included it with via:

Code

git log --summary --reverse -- prod/themes/tale-aws_2020-10-23/assets/scss/tale/_syntax.scss

This returns:

Code

commit 08e8c42dc014c7c1f84815bb5f3872fb3d8ca6d1
Author: Alan W. Smith <user@example.com>
Date:   Fri Oct 23 23:25:32 2020 -0400

    Deployment Auto Commit

    create mode 100644 prod/themes/tale-aws_2020-10-23/assets/scss/tale/_syntax.scss

commit 13e190c2a04b0cb96d7e8573e9187f6aae30625f
Author: Alan W. Smith <user@example.com>
Date:   Sat Oct 24 18:58:44 2020 -0400

    Deployment Auto Commit

    delete mode 100644 prod/themes/tale-aws_2020-10-23/assets/scss/tale/_syntax.scss

So, the commit where I deleted the file was `13e190c2a04b0cb96d7e8573e9187f6aae30625f`. I need to checkout the file from the commit _before_ that one. This is done by adding `~1`. This is the command I ran:

Code

git checkout 13e190c2a04b0cb96d7e8573e9187f6aae30625f~1 -- prod/themes/tale-aws_2020-10-23/assets/scss/tale/_syntax.scss

If you get something like this error it means you didn't add the `~1`:

Code

error: pathspec 'prod/themes/tale-aws_2020-10-23/assets/scss/tale/_syntax.scss' did not match any file(s) known to git

Once you do the checkout it'll restore the file and stage it so it's ready to be committed back into your repo and you're all set.