That's incorrect. Git considers files tracked if they are in the last commit or staged. As far as I am aware it considers files untracked if they are not tracke

That's incorrect. Git considers files tracked if they are in the last commit or staged. As far as I am aware it considers files untracked if they are not tracked and not ignored (though git clean -x documentation suggests that it considers such files untracked and simply ignores them when listing untracked files, which also makes sense). So un/tracked depends on last commit, staging area and possibly .gitignore. > Remember that each file in your working directory can be in one of two states: tracked or untracked. Tracked files are files that were in the last snapshot, as well as any newly staged files; they can be unmodified, modified, or staged. In short, tracked files are files that Git knows about. > Untracked files are everything else — any files in your working directory that were not in your last snapshot and are not in your staging area. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Recording-Changes-to-the-Repository https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Recording-Changes-...