git stash — Temporary Storage

Stash saves your uncommitted changes to a temporary stack, cleans your working directory to match the last commit, and lets you restore everything later. Perfect for context-switching without polluting history with a "WIP" commit.

01.The Stash Stack

The stash works like a stack (LIFO — last in, first out). Each stash push creates a new entry. git stash pop applies and removes the most recent entry. git stash apply applies it but keeps it in the stack (useful for applying the same stash to multiple branches). You can have many stashes — always name them so you know what each one contains.

Git's Three Areas

📁

Working Dir

Your files

→ git add

📋

Staging Area

Prepared

→ git commit

🗄️

Repository

.git/ history

02.The Classic Context-Switch Scenario

You are halfway through a feature when Slack pings: critical bug in production, fix it now. Your current work is not ready to commit. Solution: git stash (saves WIP, cleans directory), git checkout main, create fix branch, fix the bug, PR and merge, git checkout feature/mine, git stash pop (restores your work exactly). Zero commits wasted.

Commit Timeline

a1b2c3d

init

b2c3d4e

feat

c3d4e5f

fix

d4e5f6a

HEAD

Commands

commands — click to reveal output

git stash

Stash all staged and unstaged changes

▼ show output

git stash push -m "half-done login validation"

Stash with a descriptive label (highly recommended)

git stash list

View all stash entries with their indices

▼ show output

git stash pop

Apply most recent stash and remove it from the stack

git stash apply stash@{1}

Apply a specific stash entry (keeps it in the stack)

git stash drop stash@{1}

Delete a specific stash entry without applying it

git stash clear

Permanently delete ALL stash entries — use carefully

git stash branch feature/wip stash@{0}

Create a new branch from a stash and apply it

KNOWLEDGE CHECK

What is the difference between git stash pop and git stash apply?

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