git still shows files as modified after adding to .gitignore

Question

i'm adding this to .gitignore file

.idea/*

but anyway the status is:

#       modified:   .gitignore
#       modified:   .idea/.generators
#       modified:   .idea/dovezu.iml
#       modified:   .idea/misc.xml
#       modified:   .idea/workspace.xml

what am i doing wrong ? i even added .idea/* to the global ~/.gitignore_global but git status, anyway shows me:

#       modified:   .gitignore
#       modified:   .idea/.generators
#       modified:   .idea/dovezu.iml
#       modified:   .idea/misc.xml
#       modified:   .idea/workspace.xml

Answer 1

Your .gitignore is working, but it still tracks the files because they were already in the index.

To stop this you have to do : git rm -r --cached .idea/

When you commit the .idea/ directory will be removed from your git repository and the following commits will ignore the .idea/ directory.

PS: You could use .idea/ instead of .idea/* to ignore a directory. You can find more info about the patterns on the .gitignore man page.

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Helpful quote from the git-rm man page

--cached
    Use this option to unstage and remove paths only from the index. 
    Working tree files, whether modified or not, will be left alone.