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I've been using Git for a couple years now, and I don't think I've ever lost any work. Even if you do `git reset --hard HEAD~5`, "throwing away" your last few

I've been using Git for a couple years now, and I don't think I've ever lost any work. Even if you do `git reset --hard HEAD~5`, "throwing away" your last few commits, they aren't actually discarded yet. You can do `git reflog` to see them and then `git checkout -b some_commit_hash` to recover one to a branch, or `git reset --hard some_commit-hash` to set this branch back to that point. Only if those commits stay orphaned for a while (a week or two?) will Git truly discard them.

Xurinos 14y ago
It becomes dangerous if you have changes in your working tree. You truly lose those changes with a "git reset --hard HEAD" or the forced checkout.
- davvid 14y ago
  Exactly. As mentioned in the article, `git reset --keep` is the preferred way to do it these days. It preserves uncommitted worktree changes.
- billybob 14y ago
  Oh! I see. I would never do a `git reset` of any kind if I hadn't committed or stashed. Yikes!