[git] Can "git pull --all" update all my local branches?

I often have at least 3 remote branches: master, staging and production. I have 3 local branches that track those remote branches.

Updating all my local branches is tedious:

git fetch --all
git rebase origin/master
git checkout staging
git rebase origin/staging
git checkout production
git rebase origin/production

I'd love to be able to just do a "git pull -all", but I haven't been able to get it to work. It seems to do a "fetch --all", then updates (fast forward or merges) the current working branch, but not the other local branches.

I'm still stuck manually switching to each local branch and updating.

If you're on Windows you can use PyGitUp which is a clone of git-up for Python. You can install it using pip with pip install --user git-up or through Scoop using scoop install git-up

[

To complete the answer by Matt Connolly, this is a safer way to update local branch references that can be fast-forwarded, without checking out the branch. It does not update branches that cannot be fast-forwarded (i.e. that have diverged), and it does not update the branch that is currently checked out (because then the working copy should be updated as well).

git fetch

head="$(git symbolic-ref HEAD)"
git for-each-ref --format="%(refname) %(upstream)" refs/heads | while read ref up; do
    if [ -n "$up" -a "$ref" != "$head" ]; then
        mine="$(git rev-parse "$ref")"
        theirs="$(git rev-parse "$up")"
        base="$(git merge-base "$ref" "$up")"
        if [ "$mine" != "$theirs" -a "$mine" == "$base" ]; then
            git update-ref "$ref" "$theirs"
        fi
    fi
done

Add this script to .profile on Mac OS X:

# Usage:
#   `git-pull-all` to pull all your local branches from origin
#   `git-pull-all remote` to pull all your local branches from a named remote

function git-pull-all() {
    START=$(git symbolic-ref --short -q HEAD);
    for branch in $(git branch | sed 's/^.//'); do
        git checkout $branch;
        git pull ${1:-origin} $branch || break;
    done;
    git checkout $START;
};

function git-push-all() {
    git push --all ${1:-origin};
};

I came across the same issue of this question...

Wondering myself about it, I did a small alias function inside my .bashrc file:

gitPullAll() {
    for branch in `git branch | sed -E 's/^\*/ /' | awk '{print $1}'`; do
        git checkout $branch
        git pull -p
        printf "\n"
    done
    echo "Done"
}

Worked for me (:

It's not so hard to automate:

#!/bin/sh
# Usage: fetchall.sh branch ...

set -x
git fetch --all
for branch in "$@"; do
    git checkout "$branch"      || exit 1
    git rebase "origin/$branch" || exit 1
done

This issue is not solved (yet), at least not easily / without scripting: see this post on git mailing list by Junio C Hamano explaining situation and providing call for a simple solution.

The major reasoning is that you shouldn't need this:

With git that is not ancient (i.e. v1.5.0 or newer), there is no reason to have local "dev" that purely track the remote anymore. If you only want to go-look-and-see, you can check out the remote tracking branch directly on a detached HEAD with "git checkout origin/dev".

Which means that the only cases we need to make it convenient for users are to handle these local branches that "track" remote ones when you do have local changes, or when you plan to have some.

If you do have local changes on "dev" that is marked to track the remove "dev", and if you are on a branch different from "dev", then we should not do anything after "git fetch" updates the remote tracking "dev". It won't fast forward anyway

The call for a solution was for an option or external script to prune local branches that follow now remote-tracking branches, rather than to keep them up-to-date by fast-forwarding, like original poster requested.

So how about "git branch --prune --remote=<upstream>" that iterates over local branches, and if

(1) it is not the current branch; and
(2) it is marked to track some branch taken from the <upstream>; and
(3) it does not have any commits on its own;

then remove that branch? "git remote --prune-local-forks <upstream>" is also fine; I do not care about which command implements the feature that much.

Note: as of git 2.10 no such solution exists. Note that the git remote prune subcommand, and git fetch --prune are about removing remote-tracking branch for branch that no longer exists on remote, not about removing local branch that tracks remote-tracking branch (for which remote-tracking branch is upstream branch).

Just posting an updated answer. git-up is no longer maintained and if you read the documentation, they mention the functionality is now available in git.

As of Git 2.9, git pull --rebase --autostash does basically the same thing.

Accordingly, if you update to Git 2.9 or later, you can use this alias instead of installing git-up:

git config --global alias.up 'pull --rebase --autostash'

You can also set this for every git pull as of Git 2.9 as well (thanks @VonC please see his answer here)

git config --global pull.rebase true
git config --global rebase.autoStash true

This still isn't automatic, as I wish there was an option for - and there should be some checking to make sure that this can only happen for fast-forward updates (which is why manually doing a pull is far safer!!), but caveats aside you can:

git fetch origin
git update-ref refs/heads/other-branch origin/other-branch

to update the position of your local branch without having to check it out.

Note: you will be losing your current branch position and moving it to where the origin's branch is, which means that if you need to merge you will lose data!

Here is a good answer: How to fetch all git branches

for remote in `git branch -r`; do git branch --track $remote; done
git pull --all

The script from @larsmans, a bit improved:

#!/bin/sh

set -x
CURRENT=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
git fetch --all
for branch in "$@"; do
  if ["$branch" -ne "$CURRENT"]; then
    git checkout "$branch" || exit 1
    git rebase "origin/$branch" || exit 1
  fi
done
git checkout "$CURRENT" || exit 1
git rebase "origin/$CURRENT" || exit 1

This, after it finishes, leaves working copy checked out from the same branch as it was before the script was called.

The git pull version:

#!/bin/sh

set -x
CURRENT=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
git fetch --all
for branch in "$@"; do
  if ["$branch" -ne "$CURRENT"]; then
    git checkout "$branch" || exit 1
    git pull || exit 1
  fi
done
git checkout "$CURRENT" || exit 1
git pull || exit 1

It looks like many others have contributed similar solutions, but I thought I'd share what I came up with and invite others to contribute. This solution has a nice colorful output, gracefully handles your current working directory, and is fast because it doesn't do any checkouts, and leaves your working directory in tact. Also, it is just a shell script with no dependencies other than git. (only tested on OSX so far)

#!/usr/bin/env bash

gitup(){    
RED='\033[33;31m'
YELLO='\033[33;33m'
GREEN='\033[33;32m'
NC='\033[0m' # No Color

HEAD=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
CHANGED=$(git status --porcelain | wc -l)

echo "Fetching..."
git fetch --all --prune &>/dev/null
for branch in `git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short)' refs/heads`; do

    LOCAL=$(git rev-parse --quiet --verify $branch)
    if [ "$HEAD" = "$LOCAL" ] && [ $CHANGED -gt 0 ]; then
        echo -e "${YELLO}WORKING${NC}\t\t$branch"
    elif git rev-parse --verify --quiet $branch@{u}&>/dev/null; then
        REMOTE=$(git rev-parse --quiet --verify $branch@{u})
        BASE=$(git merge-base $branch $branch@{u})

        if [ "$LOCAL" = "$REMOTE" ]; then
           echo -e "${GREEN}OK${NC}\t\t$branch" 
        elif [ "$LOCAL" = "$BASE" ]; then
            if [ "$HEAD" = "$LOCAL" ]; then
                git merge $REMOTE&>/dev/null
            else
                git branch -f $branch $REMOTE
            fi
            echo -e "${GREEN}UPDATED${NC}\t\t$branch"
        elif [ "$REMOTE" = "$BASE" ]; then
            echo -e "${RED}AHEAD${NC}\t\t$branch"
        else
            echo -e "${RED}DIVERGED${NC}\t\t$branch"
        fi
    else
        echo -e "${RED}NO REMOTE${NC}\t$branch"
    fi
done
}

https://github.com/davestimpert/gitup

Sorry I also seem to have come up with the same name as the other tool above.

A slightly different script that only fast-forwards branches who's names matches their upstream branch. It also updates the current branch if fast-forward is possible.

Make sure all your branches' upstream branches are set correctly by running git branch -vv. Set the upstream branch with git branch -u origin/yourbanchname

Copy-paste into a file and chmod 755:

#!/bin/sh

curbranch=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

for branch in $(git for-each-ref refs/heads --format="%(refname:short)"); do
        upbranch=$(git config --get branch.$branch.merge | sed 's:refs/heads/::');
        if [ "$branch" = "$upbranch" ]; then
                if [ "$branch" = "$curbranch" ]; then
                        echo Fast forwarding current branch $curbranch
                        git merge --ff-only origin/$upbranch
                else
                        echo Fast forwarding $branch with origin/$upbranch
                        git fetch . origin/$upbranch:$branch
                fi
        fi
done;

I know this question is almost 3 years old, but I asked myself the very same question and did not found any ready made solution. So, I created a custom git command shell script my self.

Here it goes, the git-ffwd-update script does the following...

1. it issues a git remote update to fetch the lates revs
2. then uses git remote show to get a list of local branches that track a remote branch (e.g. branches that can be used with git pull)
3. then it checks with git rev-list --count <REMOTE_BRANCH>..<LOCAL_BRANCH> how many commit the local branch is behind the remote (and ahead vice versa)
4. if the local branch is 1 or more commits ahead, it can NOT be fast-forwarded and needs to be merged or rebased by hand
5. if the local branch is 0 commits ahead and 1 or more commits behind, it can be fast-forwarded by git branch -f <LOCAL_BRANCH> -t <REMOTE_BRANCH>

the script can be called like:

$ git ffwd-update
Fetching origin
 branch bigcouch was 10 commit(s) behind of origin/bigcouch. resetting local branch to remote
 branch develop was 3 commit(s) behind of origin/develop. resetting local branch to remote
 branch master is 6 commit(s) behind and 1 commit(s) ahead of origin/master. could not be fast-forwarded

The full script, should be saved as git-ffwd-update and needs to be on the PATH.

#!/bin/bash

main() {
  REMOTES="$@";
  if [ -z "$REMOTES" ]; then
    REMOTES=$(git remote);
  fi
  REMOTES=$(echo "$REMOTES" | xargs -n1 echo)
  CLB=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD);
  echo "$REMOTES" | while read REMOTE; do
    git remote update $REMOTE
    git remote show $REMOTE -n \
    | awk '/merges with remote/{print $5" "$1}' \
    | while read RB LB; do
      ARB="refs/remotes/$REMOTE/$RB";
      ALB="refs/heads/$LB";
      NBEHIND=$(( $(git rev-list --count $ALB..$ARB 2>/dev/null) +0));
      NAHEAD=$(( $(git rev-list --count $ARB..$ALB 2>/dev/null) +0));
      if [ "$NBEHIND" -gt 0 ]; then
        if [ "$NAHEAD" -gt 0 ]; then
          echo " branch $LB is $NBEHIND commit(s) behind and $NAHEAD commit(s) ahead of $REMOTE/$RB. could not be fast-forwarded";
        elif [ "$LB" = "$CLB" ]; then
          echo " branch $LB was $NBEHIND commit(s) behind of $REMOTE/$RB. fast-forward merge";
          git merge -q $ARB;
        else
          echo " branch $LB was $NBEHIND commit(s) behind of $REMOTE/$RB. resetting local branch to remote";
          git branch -f $LB -t $ARB >/dev/null;
        fi
      fi
    done
  done
}

main $@

Can “git pull --all” update all my local branches?

No it cannot. For fast-forwarding, I just wrote a small tool to do so. https://github.com/changyuheng/git-fast-forward-all

Advantages of this tool:

1. Supports multiple remotes in one repository. (hub sync doesn't support multiple remotes at the moment.)
2. Supports having different names on the local branch and the corresponding remote tracking branche.
3. Much faster than other scripts that fetches remote for every single branch.
4. No error-prone regex parsing/editing.

I use the sync subcommand of hub to automate this. I have alias git=hub in my .bash_profile, so the command I type is:

git sync

This updates all local branches that have a matching upstream branch. From the man page:

• If the local branch is outdated, fast-forward it;
• If the local branch contains unpushed work, warn about it;
• If the branch seems merged and its upstream branch was deleted, delete it.

It also handles stashing/unstashing uncommitted changes on the current branch.

I used to use a similar tool called git-up, but it's no longer maintained, and git sync does almost exactly the same thing.

There are a lot of answers here but none that use git-fetch to update the local ref directly, which is a lot simpler than checking out branches, and safer than git-update-ref.

Here we use git-fetch to update non-current branches and git pull --ff-only for the current branch. It:

• Doesn't require checking out branches
• Updates branches only if they can be fast-forwarded
• Will report when it can't fast-forward

and here it is:

#!/bin/bash
currentbranchref="$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2>&-)"
git branch -r | grep -v ' -> ' | while read remotebranch
do
    # Split <remote>/<branch> into remote and branchref parts
    remote="${remotebranch%%/*}"
    branchref="refs/heads/${remotebranch#*/}"

    if [ "$branchref" == "$currentbranchref" ]
    then
        echo "Updating current branch $branchref from $remote..."
        git pull --ff-only
    else
        echo "Updating non-current ref $branchref from $remote..."
        git fetch "$remote" "$branchref:$branchref"
    fi
done

From the manpage for git-fetch:

   <refspec>
       The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed by the source ref <src>,
       followed by a colon :, followed by the destination ref <dst>.

       The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local ref
       that matches it is fast-forwarded using <src>. If the optional plus + is used, the local ref is
       updated even if it does not result in a fast-forward update.

By specifying git fetch <remote> <ref>:<ref> (without any +) we get a fetch that updates the local ref only when it can be fast-forwarded.

Note: this assumes the local and remote branches are named the same (and that you want to track all branches), it should really use information about which local branches you have and what they are set up to track.

It can be done using below script... It will first fetch all branches and checkout one by one and update by itself.

#!/bin/bash
git branch -r | grep -v '\->' | while read remote; do git branch --track 
"${remote#origin/}" "$remote"; done

set -x
CURRENT=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
git fetch --all
branch_name=$(git branch | awk '{print $1" "}' | grep -v '*' | xargs)
for branch in $branch_name; do
   git checkout "$branch" || exit 1
   git rebase "origin/$branch" || exit 1
   git pull origin $branch|| exit 1
done
git checkout "$CURRENT" || exit 1
git pull || exit 1

As of git 2.9:

git pull --rebase --autostash

See https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rebase

Automatically create a temporary stash before the operation begins, and apply it after the operation ends. This means that you can run rebase on a dirty worktree. However, use with care: the final stash application after a successful rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.

The following one-liner fast-forwards all branches that have an upstream branch if possible, and prints an error otherwise:

git branch \
  --format "%(if)%(upstream:short)%(then)git push . %(upstream:short):%(refname:short)%(end)" |
  sh

How does it work?

It uses a custom format with the git branch command. For each branch that has an upstream branch, it prints a line with the following pattern:

git push . <remote-ref>:<branch>

This can be piped directly into sh (assuming that the branch names are well-formed). Omit the | sh to see what it's doing.

Caveats

The one-liner will not contact your remotes. Issue a git fetch or git fetch --all before running it.

The currently checked-out branch will not be updated with a message like

! [remote rejected] origin/master -> master (branch is currently checked out)

For this, you can resort to regular git pull --ff-only .

Alias

Add the following to your .gitconfig so that git fft performs this command:

[alias]
        fft = !sh -c 'git branch --format \"%(if)%(upstream:short)%(then)git push . %(upstream:short):%(refname:short)%(end)\" | sh' -

See also my .gitconfig. The alias is a shorthand to "fast-forward tracking (branches)".

If refs/heads/master can be fast-forwarded to refs/remotes/foo/master, the output of

git merge-base refs/heads/master refs/remotes/foo/master

should return the SHA1 id that refs/heads/master points to. With this, you can put together a script that automatically updates all local branches that have had no diverting commits applied to them.

This little shell script (I called it git-can-ff) illustrates how it can be done.

#!/bin/sh

set -x

usage() {
    echo "usage: $(basename $0) <from-ref> <to-ref>" >&2
    exit 2
}

[ $# -ne 2 ] && usage

FROM_REF=$1
TO_REF=$2

FROM_HASH=$(git show-ref --hash $FROM_REF)
TO_HASH=$(git show-ref --hash $TO_REF)
BASE_HASH=$(git merge-base $FROM_REF $TO_REF)

if [ "$BASE_HASH" = "$FROM_HASH" -o \
     "$BASE_HASH" = "$FROM_REF" ]; then
    exit 0
else
    exit 1
fi

A script I wrote for my GitBash. Accomplishes the following:

• By default pulls from origin for all branches that are setup to track origin, allows you to specify a different remote if desired.
• If your current branch is in a dirty state then it stashes your changes and will attempt to restore these changes at the end.
• For each local branch that is set up to track a remote branch will:
  • git checkout branch
  • git pull origin
• Finally, will return you to your original branch and restore state.

** I use this but have not tested thoroughly, use at own risk. See an example of this script in a .bash_alias file here.

    # Do a pull on all branches that are tracking a remote branches, will from origin by default.
    # If current branch is dirty, will stash changes and reply after pull.
    # Usage: pullall [remoteName]
    alias pullall=pullAll
    function pullAll (){
     # if -h then show help
     if [[ $1 == '-h' ]]
    then
      echo "Description: Pulls new changes from upstream on all branches that are tracking remotes."
      echo 
      echo "Usage: "
      echo "- Default: pullall"
      echo "- Specify upstream to pull from: pullall [upstreamName]"
      echo "- Help: pull-all -h"
    else

     # default remote to origin
     remote="origin"
     if [ $1 != "" ]
     then
       remote=$1
     fi

     # list all branches that are tracking remote
     # git branch -vv : list branches with their upstreams
     # grep origin : keep only items that have upstream of origin
     # sed "s/^.."... : remove leading *
     # sed "s/^"..... : remove leading white spaces
     # cut -d" "..... : cut on spaces, take first item
     # cut -d splits on space, -f1 grabs first item
     branches=($(git branch -vv | grep $remote | sed "s/^[ *]*//" | sed "s/^[ /t]*//" | cut -d" " -f1))

     # get starting branch name
     startingBranch=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

     # get starting stash size
     startingStashSize=$(git stash list | wc -l)

     echo "Saving starting branch state: $startingBranch"
     git stash

     # get the new stash size
     newStashSize=$(git stash list | wc -l)

     # for each branch in the array of remote tracking branches
     for branch in ${branches[*]}
     do
       echo "Switching to $branch"
       git checkout $branch

       echo "Pulling $remote"
       git pull $remote

     done

     echo "Switching back to $startingBranch"
     git checkout $startingBranch

     # compare before and after stash size to see if anything was stashed
     if [ "$startingStashSize" -lt "$newStashSize" ]
     then
       echo "Restoring branch state"
       git stash pop
     fi
    fi
    }

In fact, with git version 1.8.3.1, it works:

[root@test test]# git br
* master
  release/0.1
  update
[root@test test]# git pull --rebase
remote: Enumerating objects: 9, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 9 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (9/9), done.
From http://xxx/scm/csdx/test-git
   d32ca6d..2caa393  release/0.1 -> origin/release/0.1
Current branch master is up to date.
[root@test test]# git --version
git version 1.8.3.1

In master branch, you can update all other branches. @Cascabel

I do not know which version break/fix it, in 2.17(which i use), it can work.

You can't do it with only one git command but you can automate it with one bash line.

To safely update all branches with one line, here is what I do:

git fetch --all && for branch in $(git branch | sed '/*/{$q;h;d};$G' | tr -d '*') ; do git checkout $branch && git merge --ff-only || break ; done

• If it can't fast-forward one branch or encounter an error, it will stop and leave you in that branch so that you can take back control and merge manually.

• If all branches can be fast-forwarded, it will end with the branch you were currently in, leaving you where you were before updating.

Explanations:

For a better readability, it can be split over several lines:

git fetch --all && \
for branch in $(git branch | sed '/*/{$q;h;d};$G' | tr -d '*')
    do git checkout $branch && \
    git merge --ff-only || break
done

1. git fetch --all && ... => Fetches all refs from all remotes and continue with the next command if there has been no error.

2. git branch | sed '/*/{$q;h;d};$G' | tr -d '*' => From the output of git branch, sed take the line with a * and move it to the end (so that the current branch will be updated last). Then tr simply remove the *.

3. for branch in $(...) ; do git checkout $branch && git merge --ff-only || break ; done = > For each branch name obtained from the previous command, checkout this branch and try to merge with a fast-forward. If it fails, break is called and the command stops here.

Of course, you can replace git merge --ff-only with git rebase if it is what you want.

Finally, you can put it in your bashrc as an alias:

alias git-pull-all='git fetch --all && for branch in $(git branch | sed '\''/*/{$q;h;d};$G'\'' | tr -d "*") ; do git checkout $branch && git merge --ff-only || break ; done'

Or if you are afraid of messing up with the ' and ", or you simply prefer to keep syntactic readability in your editor, you can declare it as a function:

git-pull-all()
{
    git fetch --all && for branch in $(git branch | sed '/*/{$q;h;d};$G' | tr -d '*') ; do git checkout $branch && git merge --ff-only || break ; done
}

Bonus:

For those who'd like the explanation on the sed '/*/{$q;h;d};$G' part:

• /*/ => Search for the line with a *.

• {$q => If it is in the last line, quit (we don't need to do anything because the current branch is already the last one in the list).

• ;h;d} => Otherwise, store the line in the hold buffer and delete it in the current list position.

• ;$G => When it reaches the last line, append the content of the hold buffer.

There are plenty of acceptable answers here, but some of the plumbing may be be a little opaque to the uninitiated. Here's a much simpler example that can easily be customized:

$ cat ~/bin/git/git-update-all
#!/bin/bash
# Update all local branches, checking out each branch in succession.
# Eventually returns to the original branch. Use "-n" for dry-run.
git_update_all() {
  local run br
  br=$(git name-rev --name-only HEAD 2>/dev/null)
  [ "$1" = "-n" ] && shift && run=echo

  for x in $( git branch | cut -c3- ) ; do
     $run git checkout $x && $run git pull --ff-only || return 2
  done

  [ ${#br} -gt 0 ] && $run git checkout "$br"
}

git_update_all "$@"

If you add ~/bin/git to your PATH (assuming the file is ~/bin/git/git-update-all), you can just run:

$ git update-all