.gitignore not ignoring .idea path

What am I missing that needs to be done in order to get git to ignore my .idea/ path?

ctote@ubuntu:~/dev/1$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

	modified:   .idea/.name
	modified:   .idea/misc.xml
	modified:   .idea/modules.xml
	modified:   .idea/vcs.xml
	modified:   .idea/workspace.xml
	modified:   src/Receiver.java
	modified:   test/1/agent/WindowsQueryHandlerTest.java

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

	lib/
	mp1.iml

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

---

ctote@ubuntu:~/dev/1$ cat .gitignore
*.class

# Package Files #
*.war
*.ear

# IDEA config files
.idea/

.gitignore only ignores newly added (untracked) files.

If you have files that have already been added to the repository, all their changes will be tracked as usual, even if they are matched by .gitignore rules.

To remove that folder from the repository (without deleting it from disk), do:

git rm --cached -r .idea

add .idea/ to .gitignore file

run this commands in terminal to complete mission :)

git rm -rf .idea
git commit -m "delete .idea"
git push

To remove the "fatal: pathspec '.idea' did not match any files" just use if the dir still returns as untracked:

git clean -f -d .idea

Remove the file from the repository run below command

git rm --cached .idea/

now update your gitignore file to ignore .idea folder run below command

echo '.idea' >> .gitignore

add the .gitignore file

git add .gitignore

git commit -m "Removed .idea files"

For those of you getting fatal: pathspec '.idea' did not match any files:

You just have to include the full path to the .idea folder.

So first, do a git status, which should show you the path to .idea given where you currently are.

Then, include the path in the command w0lf suggested: git rm --cached -r example/path/to/.idea

If, after following steps from other answers, you still find that your instance of git running in bash or powershell just keeps on tracking the .idea/ folder, then try this!

I discovered that Jet Brains IDE's have their own .gitignore, and run their own instance of git that will override your .gitignore settings!

What I did to fix this was to navigate to /.idea/.gitignore, and change its contents to:

/**

so as to ignore everything in the folder.

The image below shows how you can navigate to the .gitignore file from within your Jetbrains IDE.

To Solve Error "fatal: pathspec '.idea' did not match any files" after entering above command,

1. Check the path of your idea folder and its files.
2. For this do git status. It will list all the files as usual. Check the path of idea folder files. Mine was at ../.idea/workspace.xml. Notice the ../.idea
3. Modify the above suggested command in the accepted answer to git rm --cached -r ../.idea
4. You will then see this rm '.idea/workspace.xml' and the files will be removed.

For ignoring .idea folder and iml file types, I did the following:

1. Make changes in .gitignore file and save.
2. Open CMD as admin or Terminal and go to Project folder.
3. Run git rm -r --cached .idea/
4. Run git add .
5. Run git commit -m "chore: Rider files ignored."

For details, see how to fix gitignore

In my case, my .gitignore has those lines:

### Rider ###
# Covers JetBrains IDEs: IntelliJ, RubyMine, PhpStorm, AppCode, PyCharm, CLion, Android Studio, WebStorm and Rider
# Reference: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/206544839

# User-specific stuff
.idea/**/workspace.xml
.idea/**/tasks.xml
.idea/**/usage.statistics.xml
.idea/**/dictionaries
.idea/**/shelf

# Generated files
.idea/**/contentModel.xml
.idea/.idea.TemplateProject/.idea/indexLayout.xml

# Sensitive or high-churn files
.idea/**/dataSources/
.idea/**/dataSources.ids
.idea/**/dataSources.local.xml
.idea/**/sqlDataSources.xml
.idea/**/dynamic.xml
.idea/**/uiDesigner.xml
.idea/**/dbnavigator.xml

# Gradle
.idea/**/gradle.xml
.idea/**/libraries

# Gradle and Maven with auto-import
# When using Gradle or Maven with auto-import, you should exclude module files,
# since they will be recreated, and may cause churn.  Uncomment if using
# auto-import.
# .idea/artifacts
# .idea/compiler.xml
# .idea/jarRepositories.xml
# .idea/modules.xml
# .idea/*.iml
# .idea/modules
# *.iml
# *.ipr

# CMake
cmake-build-*/

# Mongo Explorer plugin
.idea/**/mongoSettings.xml

# File-based project format
*.iws

# IntelliJ
out/

# mpeltonen/sbt-idea plugin
.idea_modules/

# JIRA plugin
atlassian-ide-plugin.xml

# Cursive Clojure plugin
.idea/replstate.xml

# Crashlytics plugin (for Android Studio and IntelliJ)
com_crashlytics_export_strings.xml
crashlytics.properties
crashlytics-build.properties
fabric.properties

# Editor-based Rest Client
.idea/httpRequests

# Android studio 3.1+ serialized cache file
.idea/caches/build_file_checksums.ser

check this if git status still shows .idea even if .idea/* is already added in your .gitignore file

Tried all the above solutions here and none of them worked.

What worked for me was that I added .idea to both .gitignore files. (As of the latest update there is a separate .gitignore file inside the .idea folder)

Then I just deleted whichever files were shown in the commit message and undo'ed the delete. That seemed to clear it from the git cache.