How do you remove Subversion control for a folder?

I have a folder, c:\websites\test, and it contains folders and files that were checked out from a repository that no longer exists. How do I get Subversion to stop tracking that folder and any of the subfolders and files?

I know I could simply delete the .svn folder, but there are a lot of sub-folders in many layers.

Also, if you are using TortoiseSVN, just export to the current working copy location and it will remove the .svn folders and files.

http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-export.html#tsvn-dug-export-unversion">http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-export.html#tsvn-dug-export-unversion</a>

Updated Answer for Subversion 1.7:
In Subversion 1.7 the working copy has been revised extensively. There is only one .svn folder, located in the base of the working copy. If you are using 1.7, then just deleting the .svn folder and its contents is an easy solution (regardless of using TortoiseSVN or command line tools).

On Linux, this will work:

  find . -iname ".svn" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -r

Try svn export.

You should be able to do something like this:

svn export /path/to/old/working/copy /path/to/plain/code

And then just delete the old working copy.

TortoiseSVN also has an export feature, which behaves the same way.

If you are running Windows then you can do a search on that folder for .svn and that will list them all. Pressing Ctrl + A will select all of them and pressing delete will remove all the 'pesky' Subversion stuff.

On Linux the command is:

svn delete --keep-local file_name

I found that you don't even need to copy to a temporary location. You can do a

svn export --force .

and the .svn files will be removed in situ, leaving the other files as is. Very convenient and less prone to clutter.

Without subshells in Linux to delete .svn folders:

find . -name .svn -exec rm -r -f {} +

rm = remove
-r = recursive (folders)
-f = force, avoids a lot of "a your sure you want to delete file XY".

None of these answers was satisfactory for my situation. I'm on subversion 1.8 and I had a working copy that only had a single .svn folder at the very first folder, root. However, I wanted to remove some branches from working copy.

No matter what I did, whenever I ran an 'update' it would restore those files and bring them all back. I didn't want to remove them from the repository, just from my computer -- but I needed to keep the rest of the working copy in tact (thus couldn't just remove the .svn folder).

Solution? svn update --set-depth exclude <dir>

This is a client-side "update" that excludes a specific directory. It can be found in the manuals at svnbook.com. In short, it describes this as:

> Beginning with Subversion 1.6, you can take a different approach. First, check out the directory in full. Then run svn update --set-depth exclude on the one subdirectory you don't care about.

For TortoiseSVN, you can also do the same thing by right-clicking the folder you don't want, click on Update to revision..., and then set the 'Update Depth' to Exclude, as seen in this screen shot:

It worked well for me:

find directory_to_delete/ -type d -name '*.svn' | xargs rm -rf

Use the svn export command:

cd c:\websites\test
svn export c:\websites\test_copy

All files under version control will be exported. Double check to make sure you haven't missed anything.

Just remove the .svn folder inside the required folder then the control will be automatically removed.

On Windows, you can add a quicklink for that to your explorer right click menu. Just start this registry script:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
 
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\DeleteSVN]
@="Delete SVN Folders"
 
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\DeleteSVN\command]
@="cmd.exe /c \"TITLE Removing SVN Folders in %1 && COLOR 9A && FOR /r \"%1\" %%f IN (.svn) DO RD /s /q \"%%f\" \""

This will add an item called "Delete SVN Folders" to your right click menu. This will delete all .svn folders in this folder and all subfolders.

Source (German): http://www.sjmp.de/software/alle-svn-ordner-und-dateien-loeschen/

You can use "svn export" for creating a copy of that folder without svn data, or you can add that folder to ignore list

For those using NetBeans with SVN, there is an option 'Subversion > Export'.

There's also a nice little open source tool called SVN Cleaner which adds three options to the Windows Explorer Context Menu:

• Remove All .svn
• Remove All But Root .svn
• Remove Local Repo Files

On Windows 7 one can just open the project folder and do a search for ".svn" if hidden files are enabled and delete all found .svn folders.

Check this, http://www.hacktrix.com/how-to-delete-svn-folders-from-your-project-on-windows-linux-and-mac

Another (simpler) Linux solution:

rm -r `find /path/to/foo -name .svn`

The answer is surprisingly simple - export the folder to itself! TortoiseSVN detects this special case and asks if you want to make the working copy unversioned. If you answer yes the control directories will be removed and you will have a plain, unversioned directory tree.

> THE BEST AND EASIEST WAY

If you think that you could win with a simple magic command you are failed! SVN is really tricky and always come back somehow with a new error message in Xcode. Sooner or later, promise... so you have to do it smart!

As you know the regular and best practice under Xcode is deleting a file on the project pane on the left. If you missed it and somehow deleted it in Finder you are in trouble. Big trouble! But you could solve it and spare time if you do it well.

First, you need to delete the SVN reference to the file or folder before you could delete it actually

1. If you could just put back the file/folder from the trash or undo the last step when you deleted it, then...

2. Go to Terminal - yes, the good old terminal - and go to that location. Best way just type cd then pull the folder/file to the Terminal. You will get something similar

> cd /Users/UserName/Documents/Apps_Developing/...

You could check where are you with

> ls

command which list your files.

3. Then you need to delete the svn reference with an SVN command:

   svn delete --keep-local fileName_toDelete

This will delete the file from the SVN repository, BUT you have to delete it manually in Finder.

NetBeans IDE users can do it as below:

1. Open the SVN project in your IDE

2. Select the project

   > right click
     > Subversion
       > Export
   

3. In the dialog box

   > export to folder
     > /var/tmp/projectname
       > press export
         > wait
           > will show complete
             > will ask do you want to open it do open on the  fly
   

4. You can now switch to Git :)

My idea is to remove the .svn folder and then move all other files to a new folder. It is as simple as that.

I use rsync:

# copy folder src to srcStripped excluding subfolders named '.svn'. retain dates, verbose output
rsync -av --exclude .svn src srcStripped

When you are using the Windows OS, go to your folder location and check hidden files are open, and then you can see the SVN folder in there. Just remove that folder.

svn export works fine, but I think this is:

svn rm --keep-local <folder/file>

It removes it from your local repository.

As a vital point, when you use the shell to delete .svn folders, you need the -depth argument to prevent the find command entering the directory that was just deleted and showing error messages like e.g.

> "find: ./.svn: No such file or directory"

As a result, you can use the find command like below:

cd [dir_to_delete_svn_folders]
find . -depth -name .svn -exec rm -fr {} \;

From a Windows command line:

rmdir .svn /s /q

Use the following:

svn rm --keep-local <folder name> to remove the folder and everything within it.

svn rm --keep-local <folder name>/* to keep the folder, but remove everything within the folder.

Here is an example of what happens:

~/code/web/sites/testapp $ svn rm --keep-local includes/data/*
D         includes/data/json
D         includes/data/json/index.html
D         includes/data/json/oembed
D         includes/data/json/oembed/1.0
D         includes/data/json/oembed/1.0/embed1.json
D         includes/data/json/oembed/1.0/embed2.json
D         includes/data/json/oembed/1.0/embed3.json

On Windows 10, we need to go to Windows Explorer, and then go to View and check the checkbox for View hidden files.

Then navigate to the folder that has the SVN linked on Windows Explorer and delete the .svn folder/file.