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NAME

git-checkout - Switch branches or restore working tree files

SYNOPSIS

git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [<branch>]
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] --detach [<branch>]
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [--detach] <commit>
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|-B|--orphan] <new-branch>] [<start-point>]
git checkout <tree-ish> [--] <pathspec>…​
git checkout <tree-ish> --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [--] <pathspec>…​
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>…​]

DESCRIPTION

git checkout has two main modes:

  1. Switch branches, with git checkout <branch>

  2. Restore a different version of a file, for example with git checkout <commit> <filename> or git checkout <filename>

See ARGUMENT DISAMBIGUATION below for how Git decides which one to do.

git checkout [<branch>]

Switch to <branch>. This sets the current branch to <branch> and updates the files in your working directory. The checkout will fail if there are uncommitted changes to any files where <branch> and your current commit have different content. Uncommitted changes will otherwise be kept.

If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name and --no-guess is not specified, treat as equivalent to

$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>

Running git checkout without specifying a branch has no effect except to print out the tracking information for the current branch.

git checkout -b <new-branch> [<start-point>]

Create a new branch named <new-branch>, start it at <start-point> (defaults to the current commit), and check out the new branch. You can use the --track or --no-track options to set the branch’s upstream tracking information.

This will fail if there’s an error checking out <new-branch>, for example if checking out the <start-point> commit would overwrite your uncommitted changes.

git checkout -B <branch> [<start-point>]

The same as -b, except that if the branch already exists it resets <branch> to the start point instead of failing.

git checkout --detach [<branch>]
git checkout [--detach] <commit>

The same as git checkout <branch>, except that instead of pointing HEAD at the branch, it points HEAD at the commit ID. See the "DETACHED HEAD" section below for more.

Omitting <branch> detaches HEAD at the tip of the current branch.

git checkout <tree-ish> [--] <pathspec>...
git checkout <tree-ish> --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]

Replace the specified files and/or directories with the version from the given commit or tree and add them to the index (also known as "staging area").

For example, git checkout main file.txt will replace file.txt with the version from main.

git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [--] <pathspec>...
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]

Replace the specified files and/or directories with the version from the index.

For example, if you check out a commit, edit file.txt, and then decide those changes were a mistake, git checkout file.txt will discard any unstaged changes to file.txt.

This will fail if the file has a merge conflict and you haven’t yet run git add file.txt (or something equivalent) to mark it as resolved. You can use -f to ignore the unmerged files instead of failing, use --ours or --theirs to replace them with the version from a specific side of the merge, or use -m to replace them with the original conflicted merge result.

git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]

This is similar to the previous two modes, but lets you use the interactive interface to show the "diff" output and choose which hunks to use in the result. See below for the description of --patch option.

OPTIONS

-q
--quiet

Quiet, suppress feedback messages.

--progress
--no-progress

Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified. This flag enables progress reporting even if not attached to a terminal, regardless of --quiet.

-f
--force

When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the working tree differs from HEAD, and even if there are untracked files in the way. This is used to throw away local changes and any untracked files or directories that are in the way.

When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.

--ours
--theirs

When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2 (ours) or #3 (theirs) for unmerged paths.

Note that during git rebase and git pull --rebase, ours and theirs may appear swapped; --ours gives the version from the branch the changes are rebased onto, while --theirs gives the version from the branch that holds your work that is being rebased.

This is because rebase is used in a workflow that treats the history at the remote as the shared canonical one, and treats the work done on the branch you are rebasing as the third-party work to be integrated, and you are temporarily assuming the role of the keeper of the canonical history during the rebase. As the keeper of the canonical history, you need to view the history from the remote as ours (i.e. "our shared canonical history"), while what you did on your side branch as theirs (i.e. "one contributor’s work on top of it").

-b <new-branch>

Create a new branch named <new-branch>, start it at <start-point>, and check the resulting branch out; see git-branch[1] for details.

-B <new-branch>

The same as -b, except that if the branch already exists it resets <branch> to the start point instead of failing.

-t
--track[=(direct|inherit)]

When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration. See --track in git-branch[1] for details. As a convenience, --track without -b implies branch creation.

If no -b option is given, the name of the new branch will be derived from the remote-tracking branch, by looking at the local part of the refspec configured for the corresponding remote, and then stripping the initial part up to the "*". This would tell us to use hack as the local branch when branching off of origin/hack (or remotes/origin/hack, or even refs/remotes/origin/hack). If the given name has no slash, or the above guessing results in an empty name, the guessing is aborted. You can explicitly give a name with -b in such a case.

--no-track

Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the branch.autoSetupMerge configuration variable is true.

--guess
--no-guess

If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name, treat as equivalent to

$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>

If the branch exists in multiple remotes and one of them is named by the checkout.defaultRemote configuration variable, we’ll use that one for the purposes of disambiguation, even if the <branch> isn’t unique across all remotes. Set it to e.g. checkout.defaultRemote=origin to always checkout remote branches from there if <branch> is ambiguous but exists on the origin remote. See also checkout.defaultRemote in git-config[1].

--guess is the default behavior. Use --no-guess to disable it.

The default behavior can be set via the checkout.guess configuration variable.

-l

Create the new branch’s reflog; see git-branch[1] for details.

-d
--detach

Rather than checking out a branch to work on it, check out a commit for inspection and discardable experiments. This is the default behavior of git checkout <commit> when <commit> is not a branch name. See the "DETACHED HEAD" section below for details.

--orphan <new-branch>

Create a new unborn branch, named <new-branch>, started from <start-point> and switch to it. The first commit made on this new branch will have no parents and it will be the root of a new history totally disconnected from all the other branches and commits.

The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had previously run git checkout <start-point>. This allows you to start a new history that records a set of paths similar to <start-point> by easily running git commit -a to make the root commit.

This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit without exposing its full history. You might want to do this to publish an open source branch of a project whose current tree is "clean", but whose full history contains proprietary or otherwise encumbered bits of code.

If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of paths that is totally different from the one of <start-point>, then you should clear the index and the working tree right after creating the orphan branch by running git rm -rf . from the top level of the working tree. Afterwards you will be ready to prepare your new files, repopulating the working tree, by copying them from elsewhere, extracting a tarball, etc.

--ignore-skip-worktree-bits

In sparse checkout mode, git checkout -- <path>... would update only entries matched by <paths> and sparse patterns in $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout. This option ignores the sparse patterns and adds back any files in <path>....

-m
--merge

When switching branches, if you have local modifications to one or more files that are different between the current branch and the branch to which you are switching, the command refuses to switch branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch is done, and you will be on the new branch.

When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts and mark the resolved paths with git add (or git rm if the merge should result in deletion of the path).

When checking out paths from the index, this option lets you recreate the conflicted merge in the specified paths. This option cannot be used when checking out paths from a tree-ish.

When switching branches with --merge, staged changes may be lost.

--conflict=<style>

The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the merge.conflictStyle configuration variable. Possible values are merge (default), diff3, and zdiff3.

-p
--patch

Interactively select hunks in the difference between the <tree-ish> (or the index, if unspecified) and the working tree. The chosen hunks are then applied in reverse to the working tree (and if a <tree-ish> was specified, the index).

This means that you can use git checkout -p to selectively discard edits from your current working tree. See the "Interactive Mode" section of git-add[1] to learn how to operate the --patch mode.

Note that this option uses the no overlay mode by default (see also --overlay), and currently doesn’t support overlay mode.

-U<n>
--unified=<n>

Generate diffs with <n> lines of context. Defaults to diff.context or 3 if the config option is unset.

--inter-hunk-context=<n>

Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified <number> of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.

--ignore-other-worktrees

git checkout refuses when the wanted branch is already checked out or otherwise in use by another worktree. This option makes it check the branch out anyway. In other words, the branch can be in use by more than one worktree.

--overwrite-ignore
--no-overwrite-ignore

Silently overwrite ignored files when switching branches. This is the default behavior. Use --no-overwrite-ignore to abort the operation when the new branch contains ignored files.

--recurse-submodules
--no-recurse-submodules

Using --recurse-submodules will update the content of all active submodules according to the commit recorded in the superproject. If local modifications in a submodule would be overwritten the checkout will fail unless -f is used. If nothing (or --no-recurse-submodules) is used, submodules working trees will not be updated. Just like git-submodule[1], this will detach HEAD of the submodule.

--overlay
--no-overlay

In the default overlay mode, git checkout never removes files from the index or the working tree. When specifying --no-overlay, files that appear in the index and working tree, but not in <tree-ish> are removed, to make them match <tree-ish> exactly.

--pathspec-from-file=<file>

Pathspec is passed in <file> instead of commandline args. If <file> is exactly - then standard input is used. Pathspec elements are separated by LF or CR/LF. Pathspec elements can be quoted as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see