How do I fetch only one branch of a remote Git repository

Question

I d like to grab a single branch  not all of them  of a remote repository and create a local tracking branch that can track further updates to that remote branch   The other branches in the remote repository are very big  so I d like to avoid fetching them   How do I do this

User · Answer

I know there are a lot of answers already, but these are the steps that worked for me:

git fetch <remote_name> <branch_name>
git branch <branch_name> FETCH_HEAD
git checkout <branch_name>

These are based on the answer by @Abdulsattar Mohammed, the comment by @Christoph on that answer, and these other stack overflow questions and their answers:

User · Answer

One way to do it   in  git config fetch for the remote repo should be set to fetch any branch       remote  origin               fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin     to fetch the remote branch   git fetch origin branch-name   to create a local branch  branch-name  set up to track remote branch  branch-name  from origin   git checkout -b branch-name origin branch-name   to list all branches  git branch -a

User · Answer

One way is the following   git fetch  lt remotename gt   lt remote branch gt  refs remotes  lt remotename gt   lt local branch gt    This does not set up tracking though   For more information  see the documentation of git fetch   EDIT  As  user1338062 notes below  if you don t already have a local clone of the repository where you want to add the new branch  but you want to create a fresh local repository  then the git clone --branch  lt branch name gt  --single-branch  lt repo url gt  provides a shorter solution

User · Answer

Copied from the author s post   Use the -t option to git remote add  e g    git remote add -t remote-branch remote-name remote-url   You can use multiple -t branch options to grab multiple branches

User · Answer

My workarounds   git fetch --depth 1 git checkout  lt branch name gt    if you don t have a local clone   git clone --depth 1 -b  lt branch name gt   lt repo url gt

User · Answer

git version  2 74  This is how I do it   git remote add  REMOTE-NAME   REMOTE-URL  git fetch  REMOTE-NAME  --  BRANCH

User · Answer

Pick any  lt remote name gt  you d like to use  feel free to use origin and skip step 1   git remote add  lt remote name gt   lt remote url gt  git fetch  lt remote name gt   lt branch gt  Pick any  lt your local branch name gt  you d like to use  Could be the same as  lt branch gt   git checkout  lt remote name gt   lt branch gt  -b  lt your local branch name gt    Hope that helps

User · Answer

The simplest way to do that     git fetch origin  lt branch gt   amp  amp  git checkout  lt branch gt    Example  I want to fetch uat branch from origin and switch to this as the current working branch      git fetch origin uat  amp  amp  git checkout uat

User · Answer

git fetch  lt remote name gt   lt branch name gt    Worked for me

User · Answer

For the sake of completeness  here is an example command for a fresh checkout   git clone --branch gh-pages --single-branch git   github com user repo   As mentioned in other answers  it sets remote origin fetch like this    remote  origin           url   git   github com user repo         fetch    refs heads gh-pages refs remotes origin gh-pages

User · Answer

To update existing remote to track specific branches only use   git remote set-branches  lt remote-name gt   lt branch-name gt    From git help remote   set-branches     Changes the list of branches tracked by the named remote  This can be used to track a subset of the available remote branches     after the initial setup for a remote       The named branches will be interpreted as if specified with the -t option on the git remote add command line       With --add  instead of replacing the list of currently tracked branches  adds to that list

User · Answer

The answer actually depends on the current list of tracking branches you have  You can fetch a specific branch from remote with git fetch  lt remote name gt   lt branch name gt  only if the branch is already on the tracking branch list  you can check it with git branch -r   Let s suppose I have cloned the remote with --single-branch option previously  and in this case the only one tracking branch I have is the  quot cloned quot  one  I am a little bit bewildered by advises to tweak git config manually  as well as by typing git remote add  lt remote name gt   lt remote url gt  commands  As  quot git remote add quot  sets up a new remote  it obviously doesn t work with the existing remote repository  supplying  quot -t branch quot  options didn t help me  In case the remote exists  and the branch you want to fetch exists in that remote   Check with git branch -r whether you can see this branch as a tracking branch  If not  as in my case with a single branch clone   add this branch to the tracking branch list by  quot git remote set-branches quot  with --add option    git remote set-branches --add   lt remote name gt    lt branch name gt    Fetch the branch you have added from the remote    git fetch  lt remote name gt   lt branch name gt  Note  only after the new tracking branch was fetched from the remote  you can see it in the tracking branch list with git branch -r    Create and checkout a new local branch with  quot checkout --track quot   which will be given the same  quot branch name quot  as a tracking branch    git checkout --track  lt remote name gt   lt branch name gt

User · Answer

git version 2 16 1 windows 4  Just doing a git fetch remoteRepositoryName branchName  eg  git fetch origin my local branch  is enough  Fetch will be done and a new local branch will be created with the same name and tracking will be set to remote branch   Then perform git checkout branchName

User · Answer

If you want to change the default for  git pull  and  git fetch  to only fetch specific branches then you can edit  git config so that the remote config looks like    remote  origin     fetch    refs heads master refs remotes origin master   This will only fetch master from origin by default  See for more info  https   git-scm com book en v2 Git-Internals-The-Refspec  EDIT  Just realized this is the same thing that the -t option does for git remote add  At least this is a nice way to do it after the remote is added if you don t want ot delete the remote and add it again using -t

[git] How do I fetch only one branch of a remote Git repository?

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