Multi tool use

How do I check out a remote Git branch?

Somebody pushed a branch called test with git push origin test to a shared repository. I can see the branch with git branch -r.

test

git push origin test

git branch -r

Now I'm trying to check out the remote test branch.

test

I've tried:

git checkout test which does nothing

git checkout test

git checkout origin/test gives * (no branch). Which is confusing. How can I be on "no branch"?

git checkout origin/test

* (no branch)

How do I check out a remote Git branch?

upstream

origin

git branch test origin/test

23 Answers
23

Jakub's answer actually improves on this. With Git versions ≥ 1.6.6, you can just do:

git fetch
git checkout test


(User masukomi points out below that git checkout test will NOT work in modern git if you have multiple remotes. In this case use git checkout -b test <name of remote>/test).

git checkout test

git checkout -b test <name of remote>/test

Before you can start working locally on a remote branch, you need to fetch it as called out in answers below.

To fetch a branch, you simply need to:

git fetch origin


This will fetch all of the remote branches for you. You can see the branches available for checkout with:

git branch -v -a


With the remote branches in hand, you now need to check out the branch you are interested in, giving you a local working copy:

git checkout -b test origin/test


git fetch

origin/test

git fetch origin test

origin/test

git checkout test

Sidenote: With modern Git (>= 1.6.6), you are able to use just

git checkout test


(note that it is 'test' not 'origin/test') to perform magical DWIM-mery and create local branch 'test' for you, for which upstream would be remote-tracking branch 'origin/test'.

The * (no branch) in git branch output means that you are on unnamed branch, in so called "detached HEAD" state (HEAD points directly to commit, and is not symbolic reference to some local branch). If you made some commits on this unnamed branch, you can always create local branch off current commit:

* (no branch)

git branch

git checkout -b test HEAD


error: pathspec 'branch_name' did not match any file(s) known to git.

In this case, you probably want to create a local test branch which is tracking the remote test branch:

test

test

$ git branch test origin/test


In earlier versions of git, you needed an explicit --track option, but that is the default now when you are branching off a remote branch.

git

--track

git branch test

While the first and selected answer is technically correct, there's the possibility you have not yet retrieved all objects and refs from the remote repository. If that is the case, you'll receive the following error:

$ git checkout -b remote_branch origin/remote_branch


fatal: git checkout: updating paths is incompatible with switching branches.
Did you intend to checkout 'origin/remote_branch' which can not be resolved as commit?

If you receive this message, you must first do a git fetch origin where origin is the name of the remote repository prior to running git checkout remote_branch. Here's a full example with responses:

git fetch origin

origin

git checkout remote_branch

$ git fetch origin
remote: Counting objects: 140, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (30/30), done.
remote: Total 69 (delta 36), reused 66 (delta 33)
Unpacking objects: 100% (69/69), done.
From https://github.com/githubuser/repo-name
e6ef1e0..5029161 develop -> origin/develop
* [new branch] demo -> origin/demo
d80f8d7..359eab0 master -> origin/master

$ git checkout demo
Branch demo set up to track remote branch demo from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'demo'


As you can see, running git fetch origin retrieved any remote branches we were not yet setup to track on our local machine. From there, since we now have a ref to the remote branch, we can simply run git checkout remote_branch and we'll gain the benefits of remote tracking.

git fetch origin

git checkout remote_branch

git checkout -b newbranch

git ls-remote

git checkout -b [branch] --track [remote/branch]

git pull [remote] [branch]

I tried the above solution, but it didn't work. Try this, it works:

git fetch origin 'remote_branch':'local_branch_name'


This will fetch the remote branch and create a new local branch (if not exists already) with name local_branch_name and track the remote one in it.

local_branch_name

This will DWIM for a remote not named origin (documentation):

$ git checkout -t remote_name/remote_branch


To add a new remote, you will need to do the following first:

$ git remote add remote_name location_of_remote
$ git fetch remote_name


The first tells Git the remote exists, the second gets the commits.

Use:

git checkout -b <BRANCH-NAME> <REMOTE-NAME>/<BRANCH-NAME>


Other answers do not work with modern Git in my benign case. You might need to pull first if the remote branch is new, but I haven't checked that case.

To clone a Git repository, do:

git clone <either ssh url /http url>


The above command checks out all of the branches, but only the master branch will be initialized. If you want to checkout the other branches, do:

master

git checkout -t origin/future_branch (for example)


This command checks out the remote branch, and your local branch name will be same as the remote branch.

If you want to override your local branch name on checkout:

git checkout -t -b enhancement origin/future_branch


Now your local branch name is enhancement, but your remote branch name is future_branch.

enhancement

future_branch

Documentation

master

OK, the answer is easy... You basically see the branch, but you don't have a local copy yet...

You need to fetch the branch...

fetch

You can simply fetch and then checkout to the branch, use the one line command below to do that:

git fetch && git checkout test


I also created the image below for you to share the differences, look at how fetch works and also how it's different to pull:

fetch

pull

test

test

git pull

You can try

git fetch remote
git checkout --track -b local_branch_name origin/branch_name


or

git fetch
git checkout -b local_branch_name origin/branch_name


--track

First, you need to do:

git fetch # If you don't know about branch name

git fetch

git fetch origin branch_name


Second, you can check out remote branch into your local by:

git checkout -b branch_name origin/branch_name


-b will create new branch in specified name from your selected remote branch.

-b

Commands

git fetch --all
git checkout -b <ur_new_local_branch_name> origin/<Remote_Branch_Name>


are equal to

git fetch --all


and then

git checkout -b fixes_for_dev origin/development


Both will create a latest fixes_for_dev from development

latest fixes_for_dev

development

If the branch is on something other than the origin remote I like to do the following:

origin

$ git fetch
$ git checkout -b second/next upstream/next


This will checkout the next branch on the upstream remote in to a local branch called second/next. Which means if you already have a local branch named next it will not conflict.

next

upstream

second/next

$ git branch -a
* second/next
remotes/origin/next
remotes/upstream/next


I use the following command:

git checkout --track origin/other_remote_branch


git fetch && git checkout your-branch-name

git fetch && git checkout your-branch-name

git branch -r says the object name is invalid, because that branch name isn't in Git's local branch list. Update your local branch list from origin with:

git branch -r

git remote update


And then try checking out your remote branch again.

This worked for me.

I believe git fetch pulls in all remote branches, which is not what the original poster wanted.

git fetch

git remote update

The git remote show <origin name> command will list all branches (including un-tracked branches). Then you can find the remote branch name that you need to fetch.

git remote show <origin name>

Example:

$ git remote show origin


Use these steps to fetch remote branches:

git fetch <origin name> <remote branch name>:<local branch name>
git checkout <local branch name > (local branch name should the name that you given fetching)


Example:

$ git fetch origin test:test
$ git checkout test


$ git clone -b release --single-branch --depth 5 https://github.com/user/repo.git

$ git remote show origin

You can start tracking all remote branches with the following Bash script:

#!/bin/bash
git fetch --all
for branch in `git branch -r --format="%(refname:short)" | sed 's/origin///'`
do git branch -f --track "$branch" "origin/$branch"
done


Here is also a single-line version:

git fetch --all; for branch in `git branch -r --format="%(refname:short)" | sed 's/origin///'`; do git branch --track "$branch" "origin/$branch" ; done ;


Other guys and gals give the solutions, but maybe I can tell you why.

git checkout test which does nothing

Does nothing doesn't equal doesn't work, so I guess when you type 'git checkout test' in your terminal and press enter key, no message appears and no error occurs. Am I right?

Does nothing

doesn't work

If the answer is 'yes', I can tell you the cause.

The cause is that there is a file (or folder) named 'test' in your work tree.

When git checkout xxx parsed,

git checkout xxx

xxx

xxx

git checkout xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

remotes/origin/xxx

Please follow the command to create an empty folder. Enter that and use this command:

saifurs-Mini:YO-iOS saifurrahman$ git clone your_project_url
Cloning into 'iPhoneV1'...
remote: Counting objects: 34230, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (24028/24028), done.
remote: Total 34230 (delta 22212), reused 15340 (delta 9324)
Receiving objects: 100% (34230/34230), 202.53 MiB | 294.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (22212/22212), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
saifurs-Mini:YO-iOS saifurrahman$ cd iPhoneV1/
saifurs-Mini:iPhoneV1 saifurrahman$ git checkout 1_4_0_content_discovery
Branch 1_4_0_content_discovery set up to track remote branch 1_4_0_content_discovery from origin.
Switched to a new branch '1_4_0_content_discovery'


Fetch origin and checkout the branch.

git fetch origin && git checkout branch_name


To get newly created branches

git fetch


To switch into another branch

git checkout BranchName


none of these answers worked for me. this worked:

git checkout -b feature/branch remotes/origin/feature/branch

git checkout -b feature/branch remotes/origin/feature/branch

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