Appendix A — FAQ

A.1 How can I delete files in a GitHub repository?

To delete a file in a repository, you first need to go to the file in the “Code” tab. This might include clicking on some folders until you can see the file you want to delete. Once you see it, e.g., tomato-soup.md, click it. In this view, you can see the contents of the file.

In the top-right corner of the page, you’ll click the button with three dots (), scroll down to the bottom of the dropdown menu and click “Delete file”.

You then save the changes (the deletion) by committing the changes as you’ve done during the workshop.

If you’ve deleted the only file within a folder, you might notice something unexpected: When you deleted the file, GitHub automatically deleted the folder as well! This is because the folder only contained that one file and GitHub will automatically remove empty folders. So, if this was the case, you don’t have to delete the folder separately 🔥

A.2 How can I delete a folder with multiple files?

If you wanted to delete a folder with multiple files in it along with the files themselves, you can go to the folder and click the three dots button () in the top-right corner of the page. Then, click “Delete directory” in the dropdown menu.

This will delete the folder and all the files within it, so be careful with deleting folders directly like this.

A.3 Can I look at the history of all files at a specific point in time?

Yes! It can be useful to look at the entire repository at a specific point in time. This can be done by clicking the “Browse files” button on the top-right side of the page when you’ve clicked on a specific commit message. This will show you all files in the repository as they were at that point in time ⏰

A.4 Can I look at the full history of a specific file?

Yes! It’s possible to explore the history of a specific file only. You can access the history of a specific file by going to the file in the repository and clicking the “History” button on the top-right side of the page.