How do I update a GitHub forked repository

Question

I recently forked a project and applied several fixes  I then created a pull request which was then accepted   A few days later another change was made by another contributor  So my fork doesn t contain that change    How can I get that change into my fork  Do I need to delete and re-create my fork when I have further changes to contribute  Or is there an update button

User · Answer

If you use GitHub Desktop  you can do it easily in just 6 steps  actually only 5   Once you open Github Desktop and choose your repository   Go to History tab Click on the search bar  It will show you all the available branches  including upstream branches from parent repository  Select the respective upstream branch  it will be upstream master to sync master branch   OPTIONAL  It will show you all the commits in the upstream branch  You can click on any commit to see the changes  Click Merge in master   branch-name  based on your active branch  Wait for GitHub Desktop to do the magic   Checkout the GIF below as an example

User · Answer

That depends on the size of your repository and how you forked it   If it s quite a big repository you may have wanted to manage it in a special way  e g  drop history   Basically  you can get differences between current and upstream versions  commit them and then cherry pick back to master   Try reading this one  It describes how to handle big Git repositories and how to upstream them with latest changes

User · Answer

I update my forked repos with this one line   git pull https   github com forkuser forkedrepo git branch   Use this if you dont want to add another remote endpoint to your project  as other solutions posted here

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If you are using GitHub for Windows or Mac then now they have a one-click feature to update forks    Select the repository in the UI  Click  Update from user branch  button the top

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As a complement to this answer  I was looking for a way to update all remote branches of my cloned repo  origin  from upstream branches in one go  This is how I did it   This assumes you have already configured an upstream remote pointing at the source repository  where origin was forked from  and have synced it with git fetch upstream   Then run   for branch in   git ls-remote --heads upstream sed  s    refs heads       do git push origin refs remotes upstream  branch refs heads  branch  done   The first part of this command lists all heads in the upstream remote repo and removes the SHA-1 followed by refs heads  branch name prefix   Then for each of these branches  it pushes the local copy of the upstream remote tracking branch  refs remotes upstream  lt branch gt  on local side  directly to the remote branch on origin  refs heads  lt branch gt  on remote side    Any of these branch sync commands may fail for one of two reasons  either the upstream branch have been rewritten  or you have pushed commits on that branch to your fork  In the first case where you haven t committed anything to the branch on your fork it is safe to push forcefully  Add the -f switch  i e  git push -f in the command above   In the other case this is normal as your fork branch have diverged and you can t expect the sync command to work until your commits have been merged back into upstream

User · Answer

Here is GitHub s official document on Syncing a fork      Syncing a fork      The Setup      Before you can sync  you need to add a remote that points to the upstream repository  You may have done this when you originally forked       Tip  Syncing your fork only updates your local copy of the repository  it does not update your repository on GitHub     git remote -v   List the current remotes origin  https   github com user repo git  fetch  origin  https   github com user repo git  push     git remote add upstream https   github com otheruser repo git   Set a new remote    git remote -v   Verify new remote origin    https   github com user repo git  fetch  origin    https   github com user repo git  push  upstream  https   github com otheruser repo git  fetch  upstream  https   github com otheruser repo git  push        Syncing      There are two steps required to sync your repository with the upstream  first you must fetch from the remote  then you must merge the desired branch into your local branch       Fetching      Fetching from the remote repository will bring in its branches and their respective commits  These are stored in your local repository under special branches     git fetch upstream   Grab the upstream remote s branches remote  Counting objects  75  done  remote  Compressing objects  100   53 53   done  remote  Total 62  delta 27   reused 44  delta 9  Unpacking objects  100   62 62   done  From https   github com otheruser repo     new branch       master     - gt  upstream master       We now have the upstream s master branch stored in a local branch  upstream master    git branch -va   List all local and remote-tracking branches   master                  a422352 My local commit   remotes origin HEAD     - gt  origin master   remotes origin master   a422352 My local commit   remotes upstream master 5fdff0f Some upstream commit       Merging      Now that we have fetched the upstream repository  we want to merge its changes into our local branch  This will bring that branch into sync with the upstream  without losing our local changes     git checkout master   Check out our local master branch Switched to branch  master     git merge upstream master   Merge upstream s master into our own Updating a422352  5fdff0f Fast-forward  README                         9 -------  README md                      7         2 files changed  7 insertions     9 deletions -   delete mode 100644 README  create mode 100644 README md       If your local branch didn t have any unique commits  git will instead perform a  fast-forward      git merge upstream master Updating 34e91da  16c56ad Fast-forward  README md                      5    --  1 file changed  3 insertions     2 deletions -        Tip  If you want to update your repository on GitHub  follow the instructions here

User · Answer

There s a way to do it from GitHub s webapp  Let s go through the following example  To start with  open the repo that you want to update   One can see the warning  This branch is 157 commits behind GoogleCloudPlatform master   On the right there are two buttons Pull request and Compare  Press Compare  As there is probably nothing to compare  press switching the base  A list of all the changes will appear and one can create a pull request by pressing the button Create pull request  Give it a title  let s say  quot Update repo quot   And create the pull request  Once the request is created  scroll to the bottom and press Merge pull request   Confirm the merge and that s it

User · Answer

Follow the below steps  I tried them and it helped me   Checkout to your branch     Syntax  git branch yourDevelopmentBranch   Example  git checkout master   Pull source repository branch for getting the latest code     Syntax  git pull https   github com tastejs awesome-app-ideas master   Example  git pull https   github com ORIGINAL OWNER ORIGINAL REPO git BRANCH NAME

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Use these commands  in lucky case   git remote -v git pull git fetch upstream git checkout master git merge upstream master --no-ff git add   git commit -m Sync with upstream repository   git push -v

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There are two main things on keeping a forked repository always update for good      1  Create the branches from the fork master and do changes there    So when your Pull Request is accepted then you can safely delete the branch as your contributed code will be then live in your master of your forked repository when you update it with the upstream  By this your master will always be in clean condition to create a new branch to do another change      2  Create a scheduled job for the fork master to do update automatically    This can be done with cron  Here is for an example code if you do it in linux     crontab -e   put this code on the crontab file to execute the job in hourly basis   0         sh   cron sh   then create the cron sh script file and a git interaction with ssh-agent and or expect as below     bin sh WORKDIR  path to your dir    REPOSITORY  lt name of your repo gt  MASTER  git github com  lt username gt   REPOSITORY git     UPSTREAM git github com  lt upstream gt   lt name of the repo gt  git    cd  WORKDIR  amp  amp  rm -rf  REPOSITORY eval  ssh-agent   amp  amp  expect    ssh agent  amp  amp  ssh-add -l git clone  MASTER  amp  amp  cd  REPOSITORY  amp  amp  git checkout master git remote add upstream  UPSTREAM  amp  amp  git fetch --prune upstream if    git rev-list HEAD   upstream master --count  -eq 0   then     echo  all the same  do nothing  else     echo  update exist  do rebase       git reset --hard upstream master     git push origin master --force fi cd  WORKDIR  amp  amp  rm -rf  REPOSITORY eval  ssh-agent -k    Check your forked repository  From time to time it will always show this notification      This branch is even with  lt upstream gt  master

User · Answer

Foreword  Your fork is the  origin  and the repository you forked from is the  upstream    Let s assume that you cloned already your fork to your computer with a command like this   git clone git github com your name project name git cd project name   If that is given then you need to continue in this order    Add the  upstream  to your cloned repository   origin     git remote add upstream git github com original author project name git  Fetch the commits  and branches  from the  upstream    git fetch upstream  Switch to the  master  branch of your fork   origin     git checkout master  Stash the changes of your  master  branch   git stash  Merge the changes from the  master  branch of the  upstream  into your the  master  branch of your  origin    git merge upstream master  Resolve merge conflicts if any and commit your merge  git commit -am  Merged from upstream   Push the changes to your fork  git push  Get back your stashed changes  if any   git stash pop  You re done  Congratulations    GitHub also provides instructions for this topic  Syncing a fork

User · Answer

Actually  it is possible to create a branch in your fork from any commit of the upstream in the browser    Open https   github com  lt repo gt  commits  lt hash gt   where repo is your fork  and hash is full hash of commit which you can find in the upstream web interface  For example  I can open https   github com max630 linux commits 0aa0313f9d576affd7747cc3f179feb097d28990  which points to linux master as time of writing  Click on the  Tree        button  Type name of the new branch and press Enter     You can then fetch that branch to your local clone  and you won t have to push all that data back to GitHub when you push edits on top of that commit  Or use the web interface to change something in that branch   How it works  it is a guess  I don t know how exactly GitHub does it   forks share object storage and use namespaces to separate users  references  So you can access all commits through your fork  even if they did not exist by the time of forking

User · Answer

If  like me  you never commit anything directly to master  which you should really  you can do the following   From the local clone of your fork  create your upstream remote  You only need to do that once   git remote add upstream https   github com whoever whatever git   Then whenever you want to catch up with the upstream repository master branch you need to   git checkout master git pull upstream master   Assuming you never committed anything on master yourself you should be done already  Now you can push your local master to your origin remote GitHub fork  You could also rebase your development branch on your now up-to-date local master   Past the initial upstream setup and master checkout  all you need to do is run the following command to sync your master with upstream  git pull upstream master

User · Answer

How to update your forked repo on your local machine  First  check your remote master git remote -v  You should have origin and upstream  For example  origin  https   github com your   name kredis git  fetch  origin  https   github com your   name kredis git  push  upstream    https   github com rails kredis git  fetch  upstream    https   github com rails kredis git  push   After that go to main  git checkout main  and merge from upstream to main  git merge upstream main

User · Answer

A lot of answers end up moving your fork one commit ahead of the parent repository  This answer summarizes the steps found here which will move your fork to the same commit as the parent    Change directory to your local repository    Switch to master branch if you are not git checkout master  Add the parent as a remote repository  git remote add upstream  lt repo-location gt  Issue git fetch upstream Issue git rebase upstream master   At this stage you check that commits what will be merged by typing git status  Issue git push origin master   For more information about these commands  refer to step 3

User · Answer

Delete your remote dev from github page then apply these commands  1  git branch -D dev 2  git fetch upstream 3  git checkout master 4  git fetch upstream  amp  amp  git fetch upstream --prune  amp  amp  git rebase upstream master  amp  amp  git push -f origin master 5  git checkout -b dev 6  git push origin dev 7  git fetch upstream  amp  amp  git fetch upstream --prune  amp  amp  git rebase upstream dev  amp  amp  8  git push -f origin dev

User · Answer

The  Pull  app is an automatic set-up-and-forget solution  It will sync the default branch of your fork with the upstream repository   Visit the URL  click the green  Install  button and select the repositories where you want to enable automatic synchronization   The branch is updated once per hour directly on GitHub  on your local machine you need to pull the master branch to ensure that your local copy is in sync

User · Answer

rm -rf oldrepository git clone      There may be subtler options  but it is the only way that I have any confidence that my local repository is the same as upstream

User · Answer

In your local clone of your forked repository  you can add the original GitHub repository as a  quot remote quot      quot Remotes quot  are like nicknames for the URLs of repositories - origin is one  for example    Then you can fetch all the branches from that upstream repository  and rebase your work to continue working on the upstream version   In terms of commands that might look like    Add the remote  call it  quot upstream quot    git remote add upstream https   github com whoever whatever git    Fetch all the branches of that remote into remote-tracking branches  git fetch upstream    Make sure that you re on your master branch   git checkout master    Rewrite your master branch so that any commits of yours that   aren t already in upstream master are replayed on top of that   other branch   git rebase upstream master  If you don t want to rewrite the history of your master branch   for example because other people may have cloned it  then you should replace the last command with git merge upstream master   However  for making further pull requests that are as clean as possible  it s probably better to rebase   If you ve rebased your branch onto upstream master you may need to force the push in order to push it to your own forked repository on GitHub   You d do that with  git push -f origin master  You only need to use the -f the first time after you ve rebased

User · Answer

I would like to add on to  krlmlr s answer    Initially  the forked repository has one branch named   master  If you are working on a new feature or a fix  you would generally create a new branch feature and make the changes   If you want the forked repository to be in sync with the parent repository  you could set up a config file pull yml  for the Pull app  in the feature branch   like this   version   1  rules    - base  feature     upstream  master     mergeMethod  merge   - base  master     upstream  parent repo master     mergeMethod  hardreset   This keeps the master branch of the forked repo up-to-date with the parent repo   It keeps the feature branch of the forked repo updated via the master branch of the forked repo by merging the same  This assumes that the feature branch is the default branch which contains the config file   Here two mergemethods are into play  one is hardreset which helps force sync changes in the master branch of the forked repo with the parent repo and the other method is merge  This method is used to merge changes done by you in the feature branch and changes done due to force sync in the master branch  In case of merge conflict  the pull app will allow you to choose the next course of action during the pull request   You can read about basic and advanced configs and various mergemethods here   I am currently using this configuration in my forked repo here to make sure an enhancement requested here stays updated

User · Answer

If you want to keep your GitHub forks up to date with the respective upstreams  there also exists this probot program for GitHub specifically  https   probot github io apps pull  which does the job  You would need to allow installation in your account and it will keep your forks up to date

User · Answer

Android Studio now has learned to work with GitHub fork repositories  you don t even have to add  upstream  remote repository by console command    Open menu VCS   Git  And pay attention to the two last popup menu items    Rebase my GitHub fork Create Pull Request   Try them  I use the first one to synchronize my local repository  Anyway the branches from the parent remote repository   upstream   will be accessible in Android Studio after you click  Rebase my GitHub fork   and you will be able to operate with them easily    I use Android Studio 3 0 with  Git integration  and  GitHub  plugins

User · Answer

As of the date of this answer  GitHub has not  or shall I say no longer   this feature in the web interface  You can  however  ask support github com to add your vote for that   In the meantime  GitHub user bardiharborow has created a tool to do just this  https   upriver github io   Source is here  https   github com upriver upriver github io

User · Answer

Since November 2013 there has been an unofficial feature request open with GitHub to ask them to add a very simple and intuitive method to keep a local fork in sync with upstream   https   github com isaacs github issues 121  Note  Since the feature request is unofficial it is also advisable to contact support github com to add your support for a feature like this to be implemented  The unofficial feature request above could be used as evidence of the amount of interest in this being implemented

User · Answer

If you set your upstream  Check with git remote -v  then this will suffice   git fetch upstream git checkout master git merge --no-edit upstream master git push

User · Answer

When you have cloned your forked repository  go to the directory path where your clone resides and the few lines in your Git Bash Terminal     cd project-name    git remote add upstream https   github com user-name project-name git    Adding the upstream - gt  the main repo with which you wanna sync    git remote -v   you will see the upstream here     git checkout master   see if you are already on master branch    git fetch upstream   And there you are good to go  All updated changes in the main repository will be pushed into your fork repository   The  fetch  command is indispensable for staying up-to-date in a project  only when performing a  git fetch  will you be informed about the changes your colleagues pushed to the remote server   You can still visit here for further queries

User · Answer

Assuming your fork is https   github com me foobar and original repository is https   github com someone foobar  Visit https   github com me foobar compare master   someone master  If you see green text Able to merge then press Create pull request  On the next page  scroll to the bottom of the page and click Merge pull request and Confirm merge

User · Answer

Starting in May 2014  it is possible to update a fork directly from GitHub  This still works as of September 2017  BUT it will lead to a dirty commit history    Open your fork on GitHub  Click on Pull Requests  Click on New Pull Request  By default  GitHub will compare the original with your fork  and there shouldn t be anything to compare if you didn t make any changes  Click switching the base if you see that link  Otherwise  manually set the base fork drop down to your fork  and the head fork to the upstream  Now GitHub will compare your fork with the original  and you should see all the latest changes   Create pull request and assign a predictable name to your pull request  e g   Update from original   Scroll down to Merge pull request  but don t click anything yet    Now you have three options  but each will lead to a less-than-clean commit history    The default will create an ugly merge commit  If you click the dropdown and choose  Squash and merge   all intervening commits will be squashed into one  This is most often something you don t want  If you click Rebase and merge  all commits will be made  with  you  the original PRs will link to your PR  and GitHub will display This branch is X commits ahead  Y commits behind  lt original fork gt     So yes  you can keep your repo updated with its upstream using the GitHub web UI  but doing so will sully your commit history  Stick to the command line instead - it s easy

[git] How do I update a GitHub forked repository?

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