Recovering Deleted Git Stashes

A dropped Git stash remains recoverable until garbage collection removes it. Learn how to find it as a dangling commit and restore its changes.

Takahiro Iwasa

2017-08-05

2 min read

A Git stash is implemented internally as a commit. Consequently, dropping a stash does not delete the underlying object immediately; it persists in the repository as a “dangling” commit until garbage collection runs. This makes recovery possible in most cases.

List Dangling Commits

Use the following command to identify dangling commits in the repository:

git fsck | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' >> commit_list.txt

The output will look something like this:

1
dangling commit bfebf68feeebf07a86d7e3e4da77962de67c14ee
2
dangling commit 86f4aec78bd51c80b0fd2d5d83963a2259dc72b4
3
dangling commit 48fd9f8f97a577bc8a87b133f6e1dd789a692bd0
4
dangling commit 64ff8c33fb878afb8bf5c99c1b8d8fdfaa1b1f3c
5
dangling commit bdff88e13803e6c7737691aa1fb6f1e038321966

Review Candidate Commits

To review the details of each candidate commit, run the following script:

#!/bin/bash

while read line
do
  git show $line
done < ./commit_list.txt

This will display summaries of the dangling commits:

1
commit bfebf68feeebf07a86d7e3e4da77962de67c14ee
2
Merge: b046240 5ee731a
3
Author: Takahiro Iwasa <[email protected]>
4
Date:   Fri Feb 12 22:01:47 2016 +0900
5

6
    On develop: 0212

Restore Selected Commits

Review the commit summaries and use the date, time, and commit message to identify the commits to be restored.

The identified commits can then be restored using git cherry-pick:

git cherry-pick -n -m1 <YOUR_COMMIT_ID>

Conclusion

To recover a dropped stash, list the dangling commits, review each candidate, and cherry-pick the correct one. The git fsck | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' command produces a short list of commit IDs because dropping a stash removes its ref but does not immediately delete the underlying objects.

Use git show to inspect the author, date, and message of each candidate. After identifying the correct commit, git cherry-pick -n -m1 reapplies its changes to the working tree without creating a new commit.

This method works only until garbage collection removes the unreachable objects, so recovery is not guaranteed.

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