How can I stop a Git merge that I have not finished resolving?

First run git status and review the output to see whether the merge is still in progress and what changes are present. If you decide to abandon the merge, git merge --abort is the command intended for that. It is meant to undo the in-progress merge’s index and working-tree changes and return to the pre-merge state. [S1]

Be careful if you had uncommitted changes before starting the merge. Git may not be able to reconstruct those reliably after an abort, especially if they were modified during the merge. Inspect and preserve unrelated work before proceeding. [S1]

Use git status to inspect the repository state, then review the changes it lists. Try to distinguish work related to the merge you intend to abandon from your own work that you want to keep, including anything that was already uncommitted before the merge. Do not assume every listed change is safe to discard.

If you are unsure which changes came from where, pause rather than guessing. Git’s documentation cautions that abort may not reliably restore pre-existing uncommitted changes, particularly if they were modified during the merge. Preserve unrelated work before aborting; committing or safely saving it are examples of precautions. [S1]

A cautious sequence is:

1. Run git status and review the reported state and changes.
2. Identify local work unrelated to the merge, especially anything that was uncommitted before you started it.
3. Preserve work you need to keep before aborting. If you cannot tell what is safe, stop and make a safe copy or get repository-specific help rather than guessing.
4. If you have decided to abandon the in-progress merge, run git merge --abort.
5. Run git status again and inspect the result before making further changes.

For example, suppose you started a merge while also editing notes.txt for another task. If you are not sure whether that edit was present before the merge, do not assume abort will restore it correctly. First preserve it, then decide whether to abort. The command is intended to undo the merge’s in-progress index and working-tree changes; it is not a guarantee that every earlier local edit will be recovered. [S1]

Run git status and review what remains, but avoid making additional cleanup changes until you understand the state. Git documents git merge --abort as intended to restore the pre-merge state; it cautions that pre-existing uncommitted changes may not always be reconstructed reliably. [S1]

If needed work appears missing or the repository state is unclear, stop and seek help from someone who can inspect your repository. Explain what you were doing, whether you had local edits before the merge, and which command you ran. Do not assume that repeating the abort command or deleting files is a safe recovery method.