# The Three States

## The Three States <a href="#the_three_states" id="the_three_states"></a>

Git has three main states that your files can reside in: *modified*, *staged*, and *committed*:

* Modified means that you have changed the file but have not committed it to your database yet.
* Staged means that you have marked a modified file in its current version to go into your next commit snapshot.
* Committed means that the data is safely stored in your local database.

This leads us to the three main sections of a Git project: the working tree, the staging area, and the Git directory.

<figure><img src="https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/images/areas.png" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

We will discuss this again by working with an example.
