error: cannot pull with rebase: You have unstaged changes. — how to fix

error: cannot pull with rebase: You have unstaged changes.
error: please commit or stash them.

Quick fix: Run git pull --rebase --autostash (or git stash && git pull && git stash pop). To make it permanent: git config --global rebase.autoStash true. If the changes are junk, discard them with git restore ..

What it means

Your git pull is doing fetch + rebase (because of pull.rebase=true, --rebase, or an IDE setting). A rebase rewrites your local commits on top of the remote branch and needs a clean working tree to do that safely. Any modified tracked file blocks it, even if the remote changes don't touch that file. (error: cannot pull with rebase: Your index contains uncommitted changes. is the same thing for staged changes.)

See what's dirty:

git status --short

Fix 1: autostash (one command)

git pull --rebase --autostash

Git stashes your changes, rebases, then re-applies the stash. Make it the default:

git config --global rebase.autoStash true

If re-applying conflicts, Git tells you; resolve the files, git add them, and the stash is kept in git stash list so nothing is lost.

Fix 2: stash manually

git stash push -m "wip before pull"
git pull
git stash pop

Include untracked files with git stash -u if they'd collide with incoming files. If git stash pop conflicts, fix the files, then git add them and git stash drop.

Fix 3: commit first

If the work is meaningful, commit it — it will be rebased along with your other local commits:

git add -A
git commit -m "WIP: feature X"
git pull --rebase

You can tidy the WIP commit later with git commit --amend or an interactive rebase before pushing.

Fix 4: discard the changes

Only if you're sure you don't need them:

git restore .              # discard modifications to tracked files
git restore --staged .     # unstage
git clean -fd              # delete untracked files/dirs (careful)
git pull

Changes you didn't make (line endings, file mode)

Sometimes files show as modified right after cloning: line-ending conversion (core.autocrlf) or permission bits (core.fileMode) differ from the repo.

git diff --stat          # many files, no visible content change?
git diff -w | head       # empty -> only whitespace/line endings
git config core.fileMode false   # ignore chmod-only changes

Add a .gitattributes with * text=auto to normalize line endings for the repo.

Prefer merge instead of rebase?

If you don't want git pull to rebase at all:

git config --global pull.rebase false   # merge
git config --global pull.ff only        # or: only fast-forward, fail otherwise

Merging also refuses to overwrite local changes in files it needs to update, but it doesn't require a fully clean tree.

Last updated 2026-11-04.