Stashing Changes

Stashing lets you temporarily shelve changes so you can work on something else, then come back to them later. It’s like putting your work in a drawer.

Creating a Stash

git stash

This saves your staged and unstaged changes and reverts your working directory to the last commit.

You can add a descriptive message:

git stash save "WIP: login form styling"

Without a message, Git generates a default one based on the branch and commit.

Managing Stashes

git stash list          # See all stashed changes
git stash pop           # Apply most recent stash and remove it
git stash apply         # Apply without removing from list
git stash drop          # Delete most recent stash
git stash clear         # Remove all stashes

Stashes are stored in a stack. pop and apply work on the most recent one by default.

Viewing Stash Contents

git stash show          # Quick summary of changed files
git stash show -p       # Full diff of changes in the stash
git stash show stash@{2} # Show a specific stash

This helps you identify which stash contains the changes you need.

Stashing Specific Files

git stash push -m "only package.json changes" -- package.json

This stashes only the specified files, leaving everything else intact.

When to Use Stash

Switching branches with uncommitted work
Pulling changes when you have local modifications
Quick context switches during debugging
Experimenting without creating a commit
Cleaning your working directory temporarily

Best Practices

Use descriptive messages: git stash save "add user avatar upload"
Don’t stash too many times — commit or discard instead
Pop stashes promptly to avoid losing track of them
Test after applying a stash to ensure nothing broke
Keep your stash list small by using it as a temporary holding area

Common Mistakes

Forgetting that stash pop can cause merge conflicts
Leaving stashes unattended for too long
Using git stash without checking git stash list first
Assuming stash is a substitute for committing
Not using -m and ending up with hard-to-identify stashes