How to fetch all Git branches

Question

I cloned a Git repository  which contains about five branches  However  when I do git branch I only see one of them     git branch   master   I know that I can do git branch -a to see all the branches  but how would I pull all the branches locally so when I do git branch  it shows the following     git branch   master   staging   etc

User · Answer

When you clone a repository all the information of the branches is actually downloaded but the branches are hidden. With the command

$ git branch -a

you can show all the branches of the repository, and with the command

$ git checkout -b branchname origin/branchname

you can then "download" them manually one at a time.

However, there is a much cleaner and quicker way, though it's a bit complicated. You need three steps to accomplish this:

First step

create a new empty folder on your machine and clone a mirror copy of the .git folder from the repository:
```
$ cd ~/Desktop && mkdir my_repo_folder && cd my_repo_folder
$ git clone --mirror https://github.com/planetoftheweb/responsivebootstrap.git .git
```
the local repository inside the folder my_repo_folder is still empty, there is just a hidden .git folder now that you can see with a "ls -alt" command from the terminal.
Second step

switch this repository from an empty (bare) repository to a regular repository by switching the boolean value "bare" of the git configurations to false:
```
$ git config --bool core.bare false
```
Third Step

Grab everything that inside the current folder and create all the branches on the local machine, therefore making this a normal repo.
```
$ git reset --hard
```

So now you can just type the command git branch and you can see that all the branches are downloaded.

This is the quick way in which you can clone a git repository with all the branches at once, but it's not something you wanna do for every single project in this way.

User · Answer

Make sure all the remote branches are fetchable in  git config file    In this example  only the origin production branch is fetchable  even if you try to do git fetch --all nothing will happen but fetching the production branch    origin  fetch    refs heads production refs remotes origin production   This line should be replaced by    origin  fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin     Then run git fetch etc

User · Answer

I wrote a little script to manage cloning a new repo and making local branches for all the remote branches   You can find the latest version here      bin bash    Clones as usual but creates local tracking branches for all remote branches    To use  copy this file into the same directory your git binaries are  git  git-flow  git-subtree  etc   clone output    git clone        2 gt  amp 1  retval    echo  clone output if     retval    0      then     exit 1 fi pushd   echo  clone output   head -1   sed  s Cloning into                 1     gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1 this branch   git branch   sed  s         for i in   git branch -r   grep -v HEAD   do   branch   echo  i   perl -pe  s                this doesn t have to be done for each branch  but that s how I did it    remote   echo  i   sed  s            if      this branch       branch      then       git branch -t  branch  remote  branch   fi done popd  gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1   To use it  just copy it into your git bin directory  for me  that   s C  Program Files  x86  Git bin git-cloneall   then  on the command line   git cloneall  standard-clone-options   lt url gt    It clones as usual  but creates local tracking branches for all remote branches

User · Answer

For Windows users using PowerShell   git branch -r   ForEach-Object         Skip default branch  this script assumes       you already checked-out that branch when cloned the repo     if  -not     -match   - gt                 localBranch       -replace                       remoteBranch      Trim           git branch --track   localBranch    remoteBranch          git fetch --all git pull --all

User · Answer

Here s something I d consider robust    Doesn t update remote tracking for existing branches Doesn t try to update HEAD to track origin HEAD Allows remotes named other than origin Properly shell quoted   for b in   git branch -r --format    refname short     do         b        HEAD     amp  amp  continue   git show-ref -q --heads    b         git branch --track    b        b   done git pull --all   It s not necessary to git fetch --all as passing -all to git pull passes this option to the internal fetch   Credit to this answer

User · Answer

You will need to create local branches tracking remote branches   Assuming that you ve got only one remote called origin  this snippet will create local branches for all remote tracking ones   for b in  git branch -r   grep -v --  - gt     do git branch --track   b  origin    b  done   After that  git fetch --all will update all local copies of remote branches   Also  git pull --all will update your local tracking branches  but depending on your local commits and how the  merge  configure option is set it might create a merge commit  fast-forward or fail

User · Answer

Use git fetch  amp  amp  git checkout RemoteBranchName   It works very well for me

User · Answer

fetch clone                             checkout                                                   pull                                  Remote repository   origin    lt   gt  Local repository  lt   gt  Index  lt   gt  Workspace                   push                        commit            add                                   fetch all remote repository branch meta   local repository git remote set-branches origin     git fetch -v                    fetch all remote repository branch data   local repository git branch -r   grep -v   - gt     while read remote  do git branch    remote origin      remote   done git fetch --all git pull --all

User · Answer

We can put all branch or tag names in a temporary file  then do git pull for each name tag   git branch -r   grep origin   grep -v HEAD  awk -F    print  NF    gt   tmp all txt git tag -l  gt  gt   tmp all txt for tag or branch in  cat  tmp all txt   do git checkout  tag or branch  git pull origin  tag or branch  done

User · Answer

How to Fetch All Git Branches Tracking Single Remote   This has been tested and functions on Red Hat and Git Bash on Windows 10     TLDR   for branch in  git branch -r grep -v   - gt    cut -d    -f2   do git checkout  branch  git fetch  done    Explanation    The one liner checks out and then fetches all branches except HEAD   List the remote-tracking branches   git branch -r   Ignore HEAD   grep -v   - gt      Take branch name off of remote s    cut -d    -f2   Checkout all branches tracking a single remote   git checkout  branch   Fetch for checked out branch   git fetch     Technically the fetch is not needed for new local branches   This may be used to either fetch or pull branches that are both new and have changes in remote s    Just make sure that you only pull if you are ready to merge     Test Setup  Check out a repository with SSH URL   git clone git repository git   Before  Check branches in local     git branch   master   Execute Commands  Execute the one liner   for branch in  git branch -r grep -v   - gt    cut -d    -f2   do git checkout  branch  git fetch  done    After  Check local branches include remote s  branches     git branch   cicd   master   preprod

User · Answer

Have tried many ways  only this one is simple and works for me   for branch in   git ls-remote -h git  lt your repository gt  git   awk   print  2     sed  s refs heads      do   git checkout   branch    git pull done

User · Answer

For Visual Studio Users  On Package Manager console  git branch      git fetch upstream  git merge upstream master

User · Answer

If you have problems with fetch --all then track your remote branch   git checkout --track origin  branchname

User · Answer

Based on the answer by Learath2  here s what I did after doing git clone       and cd-ing into the created directory   git branch -r   grep -v master   awk  print  1    sed  s  origin           1  amp      xargs -n2 git checkout -b  Worked for me but I can t know it ll work for you  Be careful

User · Answer

If you do   git fetch origin   then they will be all there locally   If you then perform   git branch -a   you ll see them listed as remotes origin branch-name   Since they are there locally you can do whatever you please with them   For example   git diff origin branch-name    or  git merge origin branch-name   or  git checkout -b some-branch origin branch-name

User · Answer

You don t see the remote branches because you are not tracking them   Make sure you are tracking all of the remote branches  or whichever ones you want to track   Update your local branches to reflect the remote branches    Track all remote branches  Track all branches that exist in the remote repo  Manually do it  You would replace  lt branch gt  with a branch that is displayed from the output of git branch -r  git branch -r git branch --track  lt branch gt   Do it with a bash script for i in   git branch -r   grep -vE  quot HEAD master quot    do git branch --track   i      i  done  Update information about the remote branches on your local computer  This fetches updates on branches from the remote repo which you are tracking in your local repo  This does not alter your local branches  Your local git repo is now aware of things that have happened on the remote repo branches  An example would be that a new commit has been pushed to the remote master  doing a fetch will now alert you that your local master is behind by 1 commit  git fetch --all  Update information about the remote branches on your local computer and update local branches  Does a fetch followed by a merge for all branches from the remote to the local branch  An example would be that a new commit has been pushed to the remote master  doing a pull will update your local repo about the changes in the remote branch and then it will merge those changes into your local branch  This can create quite a mess due to merge conflicts  git pull --all

User · Answer

The Bash for loop wasn t working for me  but this did exactly what I wanted  All the branches from my origin mirrored as the same name locally   git checkout --detach git fetch origin   refs heads   refs heads      See Mike DuPont s comment below  I think I was trying to do this on a Jenkins Server which leaves it in detached head mode

User · Answer

I usually use nothing else but commands like this   git fetch origin git checkout --track origin remote-branch   A little shorter version   git fetch origin git checkout -t origin remote-branch

User · Answer

git remote update   git pull --all   This assumes all branches are tracked   If they aren t you can fire this in Bash   for remote in  git branch -r    do git branch --track  remote  done   Then run the command

User · Answer

You can fetch all the branches by   git fetch --all   or   git fetch origin --depth 10000   git ls-remote -h -t origin    The --depth 10000 parameter may help if you ve shallowed repository     To pull all the branches  use   git pull --all     If above won t work  then precede the above command with   git config remote origin fetch   refs heads   refs remotes origin      as the remote origin fetch could support only a specific branch while fetching  especially when you cloned your repo with --single-branch  Check this by  git config remote origin fetch   After that you should be able to checkout any branch   See also    How to fetch all remote branches  How to clone all remote branches in Git      To push all the branches to the remote  use   git push --all   eventually --mirror to mirror all refs     If your goal is to duplicate a repository  see  Duplicating a repository article at GitHub

User · Answer

After you clone the master repository  you just can execute  git fetch  amp  amp  git checkout  lt branchname gt

User · Answer

Just these three commands will get all the branches   git clone --mirror repo git   git      gets just  git  - bare repository   git config --bool core bare false  git reset --hard

User · Answer

To list remote branches  git branch -r   You can check them out as local branches with  git checkout -b LocalName origin remotebranchname

User · Answer

You can fetch all branches from all remotes like this   git fetch --all   It s basically a power move    fetch updates local copies of remote branches so this is always safe for your local branches BUT    fetch will not update local branches  which track remote branches   if you want to update your local branches you still need to pull every branch   fetch will not create local branches  which track remote branches   you have to do this manually  If you want to list all remote branches  git branch -a   To update local branches which track remote branches   git pull --all   However  this can be still insufficient  It will work only for your local branches which track remote branches  To track all remote branches execute this oneliner BEFORE git pull --all   git branch -r   grep -v   - gt     while read remote  do git branch --track    remote origin      remote   done   TL DR version  git branch -r   grep -v   - gt     while read remote  do git branch --track    remote origin      remote   done git fetch --all git pull --all    It seems that pull fetches all branches from all remotes  but I always fetch first just to be sure    Run the first command only if there are remote branches on the server that aren t tracked by your local branches   P S  AFAIK git fetch --all and git remote update are equivalent       Kamil Szot s comment  which folks have found useful      I had to use   for remote in  git branch -r   do git branch --track   remote origin    remote  done       because your code created local branches named origin branchname and   I was getting  refname  origin branchname  is ambiguous whenever I   referred to it

User · Answer

If you are here seeking a solution to get all branches and then migrate everything to another Git server  I put together the below process  If you just want to get all the branches updated locally  stop at the first empty line   git clone  lt ORIGINAL ORIGIN gt  git branch -r   awk -F origin      HEAD master  print  2      1 origin   2     xargs -L 1 git branch -f --track  git fetch --all --prune --tags git pull --all  git remote set-url origin  lt NEW ORIGIN gt  git pull  lt resolve any merge conflicts gt  git push --all git push --tags  lt check NEW ORIGIN to ensure it matches ORIGINAL ORIGIN gt

User · Answer

Set alias   based on the top answer   git config --global alias track-all-branches   git fetch --all  amp  amp  for remote in  git branch -r   do git branch --track   remote origin    remote  done  amp  amp  git fetch --all    Now to track all the branches   git track-all-branches

User · Answer

Looping didn t seem to work for me and I wanted to ignore origin master  Here s what worked for me   git branch -r   grep -v HEAD   awk -F      print  2      1    2     xargs -L 1 git branch -f --track   After that   git fetch --all git pull --all

User · Answer

Here s a Perl version of the one-liner provided in the accepted answer   git branch -r   perl -e  while  lt  gt    chop  my  remote       my   local      remote     origin          print  git branch --track  local  remote n      gt  some-output-file  You can run the output file as a Shell script if you d like   We deleted our Stash project repository by accident  Fortunately someone had created a fork right before the accidental loss  I cloned the fork to my local  will omit the details of how I did that   Once I had the fork fully in my local  I ran one one-liner  I modified the remote s URL  origin in my case  to point to the target repository we were recovering to   git remote set-url origin  lt remote-url gt   And finally pushed all branches to origin like so   git push --all origin  and we were back in business

User · Answer

git remote add origin https   yourBitbucketLink  git fetch origin  git checkout -b yourNewLocalBranchName origin requiredRemoteBranch  use tab  D    Now locally your yourNewLocalBranchName is your requiredRemoteBranch

User · Answer

To avoid the error message  fatal  A branch named  origin master  already exists    you may try my solution  git branch -r   grep -v   - gt      grep -v  git branch   awk         print  2       while read remote  do git branch --track  quot   remote origin   quot   quot  remote quot   done

User · Answer

I believe you have cloned the repository by   git clone https   github com pathOfrepository   Now go to that folder using cd   cd pathOfrepository   If you type git status you can see all      On branch master Your branch is up-to-date with  origin master   nothing to commit  working directory clean   To see all hidden branch types    git branch -a   It will list all the remote branchs   Now if you want to checkout on any particular branch just type   git checkout -b localBranchName origin RemteBranchName

[git] How to fetch all Git branches

Examples related to git

Examples related to branch

Examples related to git-branch