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Git submodule remove

Git Submodule is a Git repository as a subdirectory inside another Git repository.

Sometimes we need to remove a submodule because of following reasons:

1. When Git submodule is no longer required.
2. When submodule update is not working because of some issue. Then, you would like to remove (clean) and add submodule again.

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Steps to Remove Git Submodules:

These steps will clean all files of submodule from git repository.

• Delete the submodule section (similar to following) from the .gitmodules file

[submodule "inc/sample-submodule-path"]
	path = inc/sample-submodule-path
	url = git@gitlab.one.com:project/inc/sample-submodule-path.git

• Stage the changes via command: git add .gitmodules

• Delete the submodule section from file: .git/config

[submodule "inc/sample-submodule-path"]
	path = inc/sample-submodule-path
	url = git@gitlab.one.com:project/inc/sample-submodule-path.git

.git is hidden git folder. If folder is not visible check your folder settings to show it.

• Run command: git rm --cached inc/sample-submodule-path

Sometimes we got issue while adding submodule: “submodule already exists in the index”. Above command fix it by removing a submodule from cache index. Try rm -r to remove recursively.

• Run command: rm -rf .git/modules/inc/sample-submodule-path

This command will remove submodules folders from .git

• Commit the changes with command: git commit -m "Removed submodule"

• Delete untracked submodule files: rm -rf inc/sample-submodule-path

If you are able to run above commands, you submodule has been removed successfully.

If you were trying to fix or clean existing submodule, you can add a new submodule now.