The relevant repo is here: https://github.com/blevinstein/dotfiles My gitignore file looks like this: https://github.com/blevinstein/dotfiles/blob/2400ca8642a7b454a2bfc54e8402343d008836aa/.gitignore It basically ignores all files, except for specifically whitelisted files. However, when I run "git status" (git version 2.8.0.rc3.226.g39d4020), I see the following untracked files: # .bash_history # .bash_logout # .cache/ # [private] # [private] # .profile # .viminfo # dev/ I can fix this by removing the following line from my gitignore: !.vim/colors/* after which all the untracked files disappear. I also tried changing that line to: !.vim/colors/twilight256.vim but it had no effect. The same effect can be achieved with any directory name starting with a period: !.tmux/asdf !.vim/asdf where .tmux and .vim are real directories. It does not seem to matter whether the "asdf" subdirectory exists at all. Brian Levinstein blevinstein@xxxxxxxxx | bpl4ab@xxxxxxxxxxxx (703) 673-8711 Google | Software Engineer University of Virginia | MS Commerce 2014 University of Virginia | BS Computer Science 2013 Alpha Tau Omega | Delta Chapter http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brian-levinstein/14/620/6ba https://github.com/blevinstein