How to remove a Git submodule

Git submodules are a very powerful way to add libraries to your project. They are easy to add but there is no easy way to remove them.
I recently needed to remove one submodule from one of my project and run in some pitfalls to avoid here are my findings:

If you for example need to remove a submodule called SELibrary in your main git repository folder, do the following:

• Open a terminal shell in you main git repository folder
• Edit the .gitmodule file and find and remove these three lines from it:

  [submodule "SELibrary"]
  path = SELibrary
  url = https://SergioEstevao@github.com/SergioEstevao/SELibrary.git

• Remove these two lines from .git/config

  [submodule "SELibrary"]
  url = https://SergioEstevao@github.com/SergioEstevao/SELibrary.git

• Delete the git reference file that holds the submodule’s SHA commit id. Note the important lack of a trailing slash.

  git rm --cached SELibrary

• Git will now see the entire directory as new files, because it’s no longer a submodule. Now you are free to delete the whole lot.

  rm -rf SELibrary/

If you ever need to do a move of a submodule remove it and then add the submodule in the new location.