Once you know the hash of the stash commit you dropped, you can apply it as a stash:

git stash apply $stash_hash

Or, you can create a separate branch for it with

git branch recovered $stash_hash

After that, you can do whatever you want with all the normal tools. When you’re done, just blow the branch away.

Finding the hash

If you have only just popped it and the terminal is still open, you will still have the hash value printed by git stash pop on screen (thanks, Dolda).

Otherwise, you can find it using this for Linux, Unix or Git Bash for Windows:

git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}'

...or using Powershell for Windows:

git fsck --no-reflog | select-string 'dangling commit' | foreach { $_.ToString().Split(" ")[2] }

This will show you all the commits at the tips of your commit graph which are no longer referenced from any branch or tag – every lost commit, including every stash commit you’ve ever created, will be somewhere in that graph.

The easiest way to find the stash commit you want is probably to pass that list to gitk:

gitk --all $( git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' )

...or see the answer from emragins if using Powershell for Windows.

This will launch a repository browser showing you every single commit in the repository ever, regardless of whether it is reachable or not.

You can replace gitk there with something like git log --graph --oneline --decorate if you prefer a nice graph on the console over a separate GUI app.

To spot stash commits, look for commit messages of this form:

        WIP on somebranch: commithash Some old commit message

Note: The commit message will only be in this form (starting with "WIP on") if you did not supply a message when you did git stash.

Careful: git reset --hard WILL DELETE YOUR WORKING DIRECTORY CHANGES. Be sure to stash any local changes you want to keep before running this command.

Assuming you are sitting on that commit, then this command will wack it...

git reset --hard HEAD~1

The HEAD~1 means the commit before head.

Or, you could look at the output of git log, find the commit id of the commit you want to back up to, and then do this:

git reset --hard <sha1-commit-id>

If you already pushed it, you will need to do a force push to get rid of it...

git push origin HEAD --force

However, if others may have pulled it, then you would be better off starting a new branch. Because when they pull, it will just merge it into their work, and you will get it pushed back up again.

If you already pushed, it may be better to use git revert, to create a "mirror image" commit that will undo the changes. However, both commits will be in the log.

FYI -- git reset --hard HEAD is great if you want to get rid of WORK IN PROGRESS. It will reset you back to the most recent commit, and erase all the changes in your working tree and index.

Lastly, if you need to find a commit that you "deleted", it is typically present in git reflog unless you have garbage collected your repository.