Git stash is a useful feature that allows developers to temporarily save changes that are not yet ready to be committed. However, sometimes a stash might be accidentally dropped, seemingly resulting in lost work. Fortunately, Git provides ways to recover a dropped stash. This guide will walk you through the steps to recover a dropped stash in Git, ensuring your valuable work isn’t lost.

Understanding Git Stash

Before diving into recovery, it’s important to understand what happens when you stash changes:

• Stash Creation: When you run git stash, Git saves your uncommitted changes in a stash entry.
• Stash Drop: When you run git stash drop or git stash pop, the stash entry is removed from the list of stashes.

If you accidentally drop a stash, you might think your changes are lost. However, Git keeps a history of all objects, including dropped stashes, for some time.

Steps to Recover a Dropped Stash

Find the Stash Reference

Even after a stash is dropped, its reference can still be found in the Git log. Use the following command to search the reflog (a log of changes to references) for stash entries:

git reflog | grep stash

This command will output a list of references related to stashes, including dropped ones. Each entry will have a commit hash associated with it.

Create a New Branch from the Stash Reference

Once you have identified the commit hash of the dropped stash, you can create a new branch from it. This allows you to recover the stashed changes.

git checkout -b recover-stash abcd123

Replace abcd123 with the actual commit hash of your dropped stash. This command creates and checks out a new branch named recover-stash from the specified commit.

Inspect and Apply the Stash Changes

Now that you have recovered the dropped stash into a new branch, you can inspect the changes. If you are satisfied with the changes, you can apply them to your current branch.

git checkout main
git merge recover-stash

Alternatively, if you want to apply the changes without merging the branch, you can use:

git stash apply recover-stash

Clean Up

After you have successfully recovered and applied your stashed changes, you can delete the temporary branch:

git branch -d recover-stash

Summary

Recovering a dropped stash in Git involves:

• Using the reflog to find the stash reference.
• Creating a new branch from the stash reference.
• Inspecting and applying the changes.
• Cleaning up any temporary branches created during the process.

By following these steps, you can easily recover stashed changes that you might have accidentally dropped, ensuring that no work is lost in your Git repository.

Conclusion

Accidentally dropping a stash in Git can be concerning, but with the reflog, you can recover your stashed changes efficiently. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can retrieve your dropped stash and continue working without losing valuable progress.