How to Stash Only Staged Changes in Git

May 21, 2024 • 1 min read

Normally, when I need to stash my code changes, I run git stash. This command stashes all my changes in the Git staging area. Then, I manage my stashes (pop, apply, drop) using Sublime Merge. I am pretty comfortable with this workflow.

However, while working on a task recently, I needed to quickly switch branches to check an issue for a colleague. Normally, I would run git stash before changing branches, but this time I didn't want to stash all the changes in the staging area. Instead, I wanted to stash only the staged files and leave the unstaged files as they were.

Luckily, there's a command for this:

git stash -- $(git diff --staged --name-only)

Let's break it down:

git diff --staged --name-only outputs a list of files with changes in the staging area
git stash -- $() stashes only the files listed by the previous command.
This ensures that only the staged changes are stashed, while any unstaged changes remain in the staging area.

Pretty neat, right? I hope this tip helps!