error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge — how to fix

error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
        config.php
Please commit your changes or stash them before you merge.
Aborting

Quick fix: Keep your changes: git stash, git pull, git stash pop. Throw them away: git restore <file> (or git checkout -- <file>), then pull.

What it means

The incoming commits modify files that you have also modified locally but not committed. Git stops instead of silently overwriting your edits.

Option 1: keep your changes with stash

git stash
git pull
git stash pop

If stash pop causes conflicts, edit the files, git add them, and your stash stays in the list until you drop it with git stash drop.

Option 2: commit them first

git add -A
git commit -m "WIP"
git pull           # or: git pull --rebase

Option 3: discard your local changes

This permanently deletes your uncommitted edits to those files:

git restore config.php      # one file
git restore .               # everything
git pull

On Git older than 2.23 use git checkout -- config.php.

To make the local branch exactly match the remote (also deletes local commits):

git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/main

Same error with checkout/switch

error: Your local changes ... would be overwritten by checkout has the same fixes. You can also carry your edits to the other branch with git switch -c new-branch if the branch doesn't exist yet.

Machine-specific config files

If a file like config.php or .env is always different on each machine, stop tracking it: add it to .gitignore, then git rm --cached config.php and commit.

Last updated 2026-10-27.