# Git basics: Ignore files from being committed

There are some files you don't want to commit to Git, simply because they would be too big and don't have any use.

Some examples of these files:

- `node_modules`: Super big and changes every install
- `.env` often contains secrets and keys. Make sure to ignore this file
- Operating system files like: `Thumbs.db`, `.DS_Store`
- `.log` files
- Any cache directory

Luckily there is a simple way always to ignore these from your git repo.

## Introducing the `.gitignore` file

As the name suggests, the `.gitignore` file will ignore specific files you marked inside it.

To use one, create a file called `.gitignore` at the root of your project.

Let's already add our operating files like so:

```text
# Ignore platform files
Thumbs.db
.DS_Store
```

But let's put it to the actual test and initialize npm in our testing repo.

```bash
npm init -y
```

Now let's add a random package. I choose `fastify` for testing purposes.

```bash
npm i fastify
```

If we then look at our Git-changed files, we'll see a massive list of files.

![Git open changes for node_modules](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1635225546510/SX_6U1_w7s.png)

That's not really what we want as this contains all the node_modules files.

Let's modify our `.gitignore` file to ignore these like so:

```text
# Ignore platform files
Thumbs.db
.DS_Store

# Packages
node_modules
```

If we take another look, we'll see there are only three files ready to be committed.

![Git commit with gitignore in place](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1635225678012/UITIKWa2s.png)

Way better!

And there you go, you can add any files you want to this `.gitignore` file but be aware of what you'll don't want to be committed.

I've pushed this to [GitHub](https://github.com/rebelchris/git-test) in case you want to have a look.

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