Undo delete in GIT

Question

I made something very stupid. I made a commit using git commit (file edits + new files) (C). Then I made amend last commit. Then I deleted all files recursively (!) using git rm -r Then I made another git commit (C).

A-B-C
    ↑
  master

Is there any way to undelete the files but keep the changes I had in my first commit? (C) I'd rather do not go back to (B). I tried git reset --soft head^, so then the git status lists files I deleted, then I did git checkout, but still no luck. I don't even know if it's possible.

Solution 1

Do yourself a favour and do not do git checkout <hash> like the other answer suggests and go into more problems.

IF you have deleted file from your working directory and not committed the changes yet, do:

git checkout -f

CAUTION: commit uncommitted files before executing this command, otherwise you're going to lose them all

The deleted files should be back again.

If not and if you can find the commit that you want ( C, etc. - your question is not clear ) from git reflog, just do git reset --hard <hash from reflog> and you should be all set.

Solution 2

If I understood you correctly you rewrote commit C. So the original commit, let's call it C1 is not accessible from your commit graph, but it is still there (git keeps all commits for a while). Use git reflog to get the commit hash and git checkout <hash> or another appropriate command to get to the old state C1.