How to git pull and overwrite file conflicts

I use git for version control. One of the biggest conveniences for me is running “git pull” to download the latest commits. But sometimes, the git pull fails because of a file that changed on the server. That’s usually my fault.

$ git pull
[...]
* [new branch] master -> origin/master
Updating 1e52df0..76637bf
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
templates/partials/nav.html.twig
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
Aborting

So here’s how to go about pulling from git anyways:

From the directory you are trying to “git pull”

git fetch --all

• Your shell will read “Fetching origin”

Then execute the git reset command:

git reset --hard origin/master

• You will see something similar to this output:

HEAD is now at 76637bf fix truncate issue

Confirmation:

You can confirm that you’ve been reset by running a git pull:

$ git pull
Already up-to-date.

Here was my exact shell session (with a few git pull errors redacted)

$ git pull
[...]
* [new branch] master -> origin/master
Updating 1e52df0..76637bf
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
templates/partials/nav.html.twig
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
Aborting

$ git fetch --all
Fetching origin
$ git reset --hard origin/master
HEAD is now at 76637bf fix truncate issue
$ git pull
Already up-to-date.
$

Exception:

If you want to pull a different branch other than master, you need to define that.

git reset --hard origin/my_branch