Untracked files cache not used when --untracked-files is used

I am using: git version 2.51.0.windows.1

Run: time git status --untracked-files

I get: It took 2.75 seconds to enumerate untracked files, but the results were cached, and subsequent runs may be faster. See 'git help status' for information on how to improve this.

real 0m2.959s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.000s

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when I run it again, I get the same thing again

However, when I run it again WITHOUT --untracked-files its much faster now: real 0m0.753s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.015s

which means that the untracked cache does work (bc deleting the untracked cache, it will be slow and also show the message) per the docs:

Which I can confirm also with: git update-index --test-untracked-cache

It seems that using --untracked-files(=all) causes it to either not use the untracked files cache (or untracked files are not stored in the untracked files cache if they are in an untracked directory?) Since various tools and IDEs use that hardcoded, fixing this would be a massive performance boost for many users

Devste Devste wrote:

What's the value of your `status.showUntrackedFiles` config var? I ask because I looked around a bit and found commit e6a653554bb49c26d105f3b478cbdbb1c0648f65 (untracked-cache: support '--untracked-files=all' if configured), which includes:

Testing this out on a big repo (on my Linux machine):

    $ git init .
    # create ~100_000 files with plenty of directories
    $ for i in {1..10000}; do echo dir_$i/{1,2,3,4}/nested_{1,2}; done | xargs mkdir -p
    $ for i in {1..10000}; do echo dir_$i/{foo,bar,baz}/file.txt; done | xargs touch
    $ git add .

As expected, status with untracked files and no untracked cache is rather slow:

    $ time GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL=/dev/null git status --untracked-files=all >/dev/null

    real	0m1.237s
    user	0m0.484s
    sys	0m1.150s

Status with untracked files and `core.untrackedCache=true` is just as slow:

    $ time GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL=/dev/null git -c 'core.untrackedCache=true' status --untracked-files=all >/dev/null

    real	0m1.250s
    user	0m0.435s
    sys	0m1.216s

However, with `status.untrackedFiles=all` (i.e. matching the `--untracked-files` flag) it's much quicker:

    $ time GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL=/dev/null git -c 'core.untrackedCache=true' -c 'status.showUntrackedFiles=all' status --untracked-files=all >/dev/null

    real	0m0.382s
    user	0m0.214s
    sys	0m0.568s

Thank you, this solved the problem indeed, status.showUntrackedFiles was not set at all in my case.

However: it did not work/update the cache initially with the command
the IDE/GUI usually runs:

git config status.showUntrackedFiles all

time git -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false --no-optional-locks status --porcelain --ignore-submodules=dirty --untracked-files=all --no-ahead-behind real 0m3.463s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.000s

time git -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false --no-optional-locks status --porcelain --ignore-submodules=dirty --untracked-files=all --no-ahead-behind real 0m3.423s user 0m0.031s sys 0m0.015s

time git status --untracked-files ...

It took 3.41 seconds to enumerate untracked files, but the results were cached, and subsequent runs may be faster. See 'git help status' for information on how to improve this. ... real 0m3.691s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.015s

time git status --untracked-files ... real 0m0.773s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.000s

time git -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false --no-optional-locks status --porcelain --ignore-submodules=dirty --untracked-files=all --no-ahead-behind ... real 0m0.818s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.015s

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One of --no-optional-locks --porcelain --ignore-submodules=dirty --no-ahead-behind causes it to not update the cache it seems. Unfortunately, I cannot tell which exactly, because now, even when unsetting status.showUntrackedFiles it uses the cache for --untracked-files=all This means, that if the untracked cache was created with status.showUntrackedFiles all, it will always use the untracked-files cache for --untracked-files

On Sun, 5 Oct 2025 at 02:20, Matthew Hughes <matthewhughes934@gmail.com> wrote:

You can disable the untracked cache with `git update-index --no-untracked-cache`. Experimenting with that, on my machine the culprit looks to be `--no-optional-locks`:

    time GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL=/dev/null git \
        --no-optional-locks \
        -c 'diff.mnemonicprefix=false' \
        -c 'core.quotepath=false' \
        -c 'core.untrackedCache=true' \
        -c 'status.showUntrackedFiles=all' \
        status \
        --porcelain \
        --ignore-submodules=dirty \
        --no-ahead-behind \
        --untracked-files=all  >/dev/null

Will consistently, on repeated runs, take >1s. After removing `--no-optional-locks` one more run is still slow, but after that it drops to ~300ms.

Glancing at the code: the likely cause is the `repo_update_index_if_able` call in `cmd_status` is only called when `use_optional_locks` returns a truthy value.

Which means essentially, I have to run git status --untracked-files once a day to keep the untracked cache up to date, since I can't change the git commands SourceTree uses

On Mon, 6 Oct 2025 at 19:25, Matthew Hughes <matthewhughes934@gmail.com> wrote: