How to find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository

Find the last commit that affected the given path. As the file isn't in the HEAD commit, that previous commit must have deleted it.

git rev-list -n 1 HEAD -- <file_path>

Then checkout the version at the commit before, using the caret (^) symbol:

git checkout <deleting_commit>^ -- <file_path>

Or in one command, if $file is the file in question.

git checkout $(git rev-list -n 1 HEAD -- "$file")^ -- "$file"

If you are using zsh and have the EXTENDED_GLOB option enabled, the caret symbol won't work. You can use ~1 instead.

git checkout $(git rev-list -n 1 HEAD -- "$file")~1 -- "$file"

Get all the commits which have deleted files, as well as the files that were deleted:
```
git log --diff-filter=D --summary
```
Make note of the desired commit hash, e.g. e4e6d4d5e5c59c69f3bd7be2.
Restore the deleted file from one commit prior (~1) to the commit that was determined above (e4e6d4d5e5c59c69f3bd7be2):
```
git checkout e4e6d4d5e5c59c69f3bd7be2~1 path/to/file.ext
```
Note the ~1.

Related