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This article discusses the steps required to resolve unmerged paths in Git. We usually get this message when there is a merge conflict in our repository.

You may encounter messages like this when files conflict while merging branches.

For example, if you modify a file in the master branch and modify the same file in a feature branch, merging the two will result in a conflict that you must resolve manually.

Every time you run git statusthe command, you will get the Unmerged paths message. So, how do you solve this problem?

Resolving Git status unmerged paths

We will use an example to demonstrate the scenario explained above.

In our master branch, we will edit the README.md file and commit the changes. We will then switch to the feature branch and edit the README.md file on the same line as master and commit.

Finally, we will attempt to merge the two branches.

Let's run git statusthe command.

The easiest way out is to resolve the conflict and commit the changes. We will use Meld to resolve the conflict.

Run git mergetoolthe command to open Meld. You should get something like this:

The red sections show merge conflicts. All we need to do is edit the document to remove the conflicts, save the changes and exit Meld.

In our case, we will keep it simple and edit the documents to look the same.

From the Bash terminal, we can run git addthe and commands git committo commit our changes and complete the merge process.

Alternatively, you can use an editor like VSCode. It shows you where the merge conflicts are and how to resolve them.

Take a look at this example.

You can choose to accept the current changes, the incoming changes, both changes, or compare changes. Accepting both changes will leave you with two versions of your file, which is not what we want.

Once we have resolved the conflicting files, we can add the files to the index and commit them using the git add and git commit commands.

This should complete the merge and if you run the git status command you will get a clean working directory.

In short, when there is a merge conflict in our repository, the Unmerged paths message pops up. You have to manually resolve the conflict and commit the changes.

It is always recommended to use a merge tool like Meld. It can identify where files conflict and make the necessary changes easier.