How to revert a single file to a commit with changes on multiple files

Situation

You have a commit that makes changes to a bunch of files. You later need to revert the changes on only 1 of those files without changing any of the others.

Example

• Commit 1 updates index.html, styles.css, and script.js
• Commit 2 updates the styles.css and script.js

You want to go back to the styles from Commit 1;

Step 1: Find the commit before the changes you want to revert

Find commits for style.css git log --oneline styles.css

651e4d4 (HEAD -> main) updates styles.css and script.js
22c1d3f updates index.html, styles.css and script.js (want to revert style.css to this commit)
f5346b3 initial commit

Step 2: Copy the SHA for that commit

22c1d3f in this case

Step 3: Checkout only the file change for styles.css in that commit

git checkout <SHA> <FILENAME>

git checkout 22c1d3f styles.css

Step 4: Commit

git add styles.css
git commit -m "returns styles.css to previous commit"

Published Sep 20, 2024