git - How to find a deleted file in the project commit history?

Question

Once upon a time, there was a file in my project that I would now like to be able to get.

The problem is: I have no idea of when have I deleted it and on which path it was.

How can I locate the commits of this file when it existed?

Answer 1

If you do not know the exact path you may use

git log --all --full-history -- "**/thefile.*"

If you know the path the file was at, you can do this:

git log --all --full-history -- <path-to-file>

This should show a list of commits in all branches which touched that file. Then, you can find the version of the file you want, and display it with...

git show <SHA> -- <path-to-file>

Or restore it into your working copy with:

git checkout <SHA>^ -- <path-to-file>

Note the caret symbol (^), which gets the checkout prior to the one identified, because at the moment of <SHA> commit the file is deleted, we need to look at the previous commit to get the deleted file's contents