Ignore all .DS_Store files

If you use git on a Mac, chances are you’ve accidentally committed a .DS_Store to a repo. I used to reflexively add .DS_Store to all my .gitignore files to avoid ever repeating that mistake.

But there’s a better way! You can add a global .gitignore file to your global config with this command:

git config --global core.excludesFile '~/.gitignore'

The single quotes around ~/.gitignore aren’t strictly necessary; if you don’t use them, the ~ will just get expanded into the absolute path to your home directory.

Under the hood, that command just adds this to your ~/.gitconfig:

[core]
        excludesFile = ~/.gitignore