Save your local modifications to a new stash, and run git reset --hard to revert them. The <message> part is optional and gives the description along with the stashed state. For quickly making a snapshot, you can omit both "save" and <message>, but giving only <message> does not trigger this action to prevent a misspelled subcommand from making an unwanted stash.

List the stashes that you currently have. Each stash is listed with its name (e.g. stash@{0} is the latest stash, stash@{1} is the one before, etc.), the name of the branch that was current when the stash was made, and a short description of the commit the stash was based on.

stash@{0}: WIP on submit: 6ebd0e2... Update git-stash documentation
stash@{1}: On master: 9cc0589... Add git-stash

Show the changes recorded in the stash as a diff between the stashed state and its original parent. When no <stash> is given, shows the latest one. By default, the command shows the diffstat, but it will accept any format known to git diff (e.g., git stash show -p stash@{1} to view the second most recent stash in patch form). You can use stash.showStat and/or stash.showPatch config variables to change the default behavior.

Remove a single stashed state from the stash list and apply it on top of the current working tree state, i.e., do the inverse operation of git stash save. The working directory must match the index.

Like pop, but do not remove the state from the stash list. Unlike pop, <stash> may be any commit that looks like a commit created by stash save or stash create.

Creates and checks out a new branch named <branchname> starting from the commit at which the <stash> was originally created, applies the changes recorded in <stash> to the new working tree and index. If that succeeds, and <stash> is a reference of the form stash@{<revision>}, it then drops the <stash>. When no <stash> is given, applies the latest one.

Remove all the stashed states. Note that those states will then be subject to pruning, and may be impossible to recover (see Examples below for a possible strategy).

Remove a single stashed state from the stash list. When no <stash> is given, it removes the latest one. i.e. stash@{0}, otherwise <stash> must be a valid stash log reference of the form stash@{<revision>}.

Create a stash (which is a regular commit object) and return its object name, without storing it anywhere in the ref namespace. This is intended to be useful for scripts. It is probably not the command you want to use; see "save" above.

Store a given stash created via git stash create (which is a dangling merge commit) in the stash ref, updating the stash reflog. This is intended to be useful for scripts. It is probably not the command you want to use; see "save" above.

When you are in the middle of something, you learn that there are upstream changes that are possibly relevant to what you are doing. When your local changes do not conflict with the changes in the upstream, a simple git pull will let you move forward.

$ git pull
 ...
file foobar not up to date, cannot merge.
$ git stash
$ git pull
$ git stash pop

When you are in the middle of something, your boss comes in and demands that you fix something immediately. Traditionally, you would make a commit to a temporary branch to store your changes away, and return to your original branch to make the emergency fix, like this:

# ... hack hack hack ...
$ git checkout -b my_wip
$ git commit -a -m "WIP"
$ git checkout master
$ edit emergency fix
$ git commit -a -m "Fix in a hurry"
$ git checkout my_wip
$ git reset --soft HEAD^
# ... continue hacking ...

# ... hack hack hack ...
$ git stash
$ edit emergency fix
$ git commit -a -m "Fix in a hurry"
$ git stash pop
# ... continue hacking ...

You can use git stash save --keep-index when you want to make two or more commits out of the changes in the work tree, and you want to test each change before committing:

# ... hack hack hack ...
$ git add --patch foo            # add just first part to the index
$ git stash save --keep-index    # save all other changes to the stash
$ edit/build/test first part
$ git commit -m 'First part'     # commit fully tested change
$ git stash pop                  # prepare to work on all other changes
# ... repeat above five steps until one commit remains ...
$ edit/build/test remaining parts
$ git commit foo -m 'Remaining parts'

If you mistakenly drop or clear stashes, they cannot be recovered through the normal safety mechanisms. However, you can try the following incantation to get a list of stashes that are still in your repository, but not reachable any more:

git fsck --unreachable |
grep commit | cut -d\  -f3 |
xargs git log --merges --no-walk --grep=WIP