Remove files from Git commit

Question

I am using Git and I have committed few files using

git commit -a

Later, I found that a file had mistakenly been added to the commit.

How can I remove a file from the last commit?

Answer 1

I think other answers here are wrong, because this is a question of moving the mistakenly committed files back to the staging area from the previous commit, without cancelling the changes done to them. This can be done like Paritosh Singh suggested:

git reset --soft HEAD^ 

or

git reset --soft HEAD~1

Then reset the unwanted files in order to leave them out from the commit:

git reset HEAD path/to/unwanted_file

Now commit again, you can even re-use the same commit message:

git commit -c ORIG_HEAD