How can I move HEAD back to a previous location Detached head Undo commits

Question

In Git  I was trying to do a squash commit by merging in another branch and then resetting HEAD to the previous place via   git reset origin master   But I need to step out of this  How can I move HEAD back to the previous location   I have the SHA-1 fragment  23b6772  of the commit that I need to move it to  How can I get back to this commit

User · Answer

Today  I mistakenly checked out on a commit and started working on it  making some commits on a detach HEAD state  Then I pushed to the remote branch using the following command   git push origin HEAD   lt My-remote-branch gt    Then  git checkout  lt My-remote-branch gt    Then  git pull   I finally got my all changes in my branch that I made in detach HEAD

User · Answer

Before answering  let s add some background  explaining what this HEAD is  First of all what is HEAD  HEAD is simply a reference to the current commit  latest  on the current branch   There can only be a single HEAD at any given time  excluding git worktree   The content of HEAD is stored inside  git HEAD and it contains the 40 bytes SHA-1 of the current commit   detached HEAD If you are not on the latest commit - meaning that HEAD is pointing to a prior commit in history it s called detached HEAD   On the command line  it will look like this - SHA-1 instead of the branch name since the HEAD is not pointing to the tip of the current branch     A few options on how to recover from a detached HEAD   git checkout git checkout  lt commit id gt  git checkout -b  lt new branch gt   lt commit id gt  git checkout HEAD X    x is the number of commits to go back  This will checkout new branch pointing to the desired commit   This command will checkout to a given commit   At this point  you can create a branch and start to work from this point on    Checkout a given commit    Doing so will result in a  detached HEAD  which mean that the  HEAD    is not pointing to the latest so you will need to checkout branch   in order to be able to update the code  git checkout  lt commit-id gt     Create a new branch forked to the given commit git checkout -b  lt branch name gt    git reflog You can always use the reflog as well   git reflog  will display any change which updated the HEAD and checking out the desired reflog entry will set the HEAD back to this commit  Every time the HEAD is modified there will be a new entry in the reflog git reflog git checkout HEAD        This will get you back to your desired commit   git reset --hard  lt commit id gt   quot Move quot  your HEAD back to the desired commit    This will destroy any local modifications    Don t do it if you have uncommitted work you want to keep  git reset --hard 0d1d7fc32    Alternatively  if there s work to keep  git stash git reset --hard 0d1d7fc32 git stash pop   This saves the modifications  then reapplies that patch after resetting    You could get merge conflicts if you ve modified things which were   changed since the commit you reset to    Note   Since Git 2 7  you can also use the git rebase --no-autostash as well    git revert  lt sha-1 gt   quot Undo quot  the given commit or commit range   The reset command will  quot undo quot  any changes made in the given commit   A new commit with the undo patch will be committed while the original commit will remain in the history as well    Add a new commit with the undo of the original one    The  lt sha-1 gt  can be any commit s  or commit range git revert  lt sha-1 gt    This schema illustrates which command does what   As you can see there  reset  amp  amp  checkout modify the HEAD

User · Answer

Quickest possible solution  just 1 step   Use git checkout -  You will see Switched to branch  lt branch name gt   Confirm it s the branch you want     Brief explanation  this command will move HEAD back to its last position  See note on outcomes at the end of this answer     Mnemonic  this approach is a lot like using cd - to return to your previously visited directory  Syntax and the applicable cases are a pretty good match  e g  it s useful when you actually want HEAD to return to where it was      More methodical solution  2-steps  but memorable   The quick approach solves the OP s question  But what if your situation is slightly different  say you have restarted Bash then found yourself with HEAD detached  In that case  here are 2 simple  easily remembered steps   1  Pick the branch you need  Use git branch -v  You see a list of existing local branches  Grab the branch name that suits your needs   2  Move HEAD to it  Use git checkout  lt branch name gt   You will see Switched to branch  lt branch name gt   Success     Outcomes  With either method  you can now continue adding and committing your work as before  your next changes will be tracked on  lt branch name gt    Note that both git checkout - and git checkout  lt branch name gt  will give additional instructions if you have committed changes while HEAD was detached

User · Answer

The question can be read as   I was in detached-state with HEAD at 23b6772 and typed git reset origin master  because I wanted to squash   Now I ve changed my mind  how do I go back to HEAD being at 23b6772   The straightforward answer being  git reset 23b6772  But I hit this question because I got sick of typing  copy  amp  pasting  commit hashes or its abbreviation each time I wanted to reference the previous HEAD and was Googling to see if there were any kind of shorthand   It turns out there is   git reset -  or in my case git cherry-pick -   Which incidentally was the same as cd - to return to the previous current directory in  nix  So hurrah  I learned two things with one stone

User · Answer

When you run the command git checkout commit id then HEAD detached from 13ca5593d say commit-id  and branch will be on longer available   Move back to previous location run the command step wise -   git pull origin branch name  say master  git checkout branch name git pull origin branch name   You will be back to the previous location with an updated commit from the remote repository

User · Answer

First reset locally  git reset 23b6772  To see if you re on the right position  verify with  git status  You will see something like   On branch master Your branch is behind  origin master  by 17 commits  and can be fast-forwarded   Then rewrite history on your remote tracking branch to reflect the change  git push --force-with-lease    a useful command  oktober mentions in comments  Using --force-with-lease instead of --force will raise an error if others have meanwhile committed to the remote branch  in which case you should fetch first  More info in this article

User · Answer

This may not be a technical solution  but it works   if anyone of your teammate has the same branch in local   Let s assume your branch name as branch-xxx   Steps to Solve    Don t do update or pull - nothing Just create a new branch  branch-yyy  from branch-xxx on his machine That s all  all your existing changes will be in this new branch  branch-yyy   You can continue your work with this branch    Note  Again  this is not a technical solution  but it will help for sure

[git] How can I move HEAD back to a previous location? (Detached head) & Undo commits

Examples related to git

Examples related to git-checkout

Examples related to git-reset

Examples related to git-revert

Examples related to git-reflog