Can git pull --all update all my local branches

Question

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

User · Answer

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.

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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  amp  gt  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     amp  amp     CHANGED -gt 0    then         echo -e    YELLO WORKING  NC  t t branch      elif git rev-parse --verify --quiet  branch  u  amp  gt  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 amp  gt  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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  lt upstream gt   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  lt upstream gt   and    3  it does not have any commits on its own       then remove that branch    git remote --prune-local-forks  lt upstream gt   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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    Supports multiple remotes in one repository   hub sync doesn t support multiple remotes at the moment   Supports having different names on the local branch and the corresponding remote tracking branche  Much faster than other scripts that fetches remote for every single branch  No error-prone regex parsing editing

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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   - gt     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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    lt remote-ref gt   lt branch gt    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 - gt  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

User · Answer

The behavior you describe for pull --all is exactly as expected  though not necessarily useful  The option is passed along to git fetch  which then fetches all refs from all remotes  instead of just the needed one  pull then merges  or in your case  rebases  the appropriate single branch   If you want to check out other branches  you re going to have to check them out  And yes  merging  and rebasing  absolutely require a work tree  so they cannot be done without checking out the other branches  You could wrap up your described steps into a script alias if you like  though I d suggest joining the commands with  amp  amp  so that should one of them fail  it won t try to plow on

User · Answer

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      it issues a git remote update to fetch the lates revs  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  then it checks with git rev-list --count  lt REMOTE BRANCH gt    lt LOCAL BRANCH gt  how many commit the local branch is behind the remote  and ahead vice versa  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 if the local branch is 0 commits ahead and 1 or more commits behind  it can be fast-forwarded by git branch -f  lt LOCAL BRANCH gt  -t  lt REMOTE BRANCH gt    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 gt  dev null   0          NAHEAD       git rev-list --count  ARB   ALB 2 gt  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  gt  dev null          fi       fi     done   done    main

User · Answer

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 gt  dev null        1     -n     amp  amp  shift  amp  amp  run echo    for x in    git branch   cut -c3-     do       run git checkout  x  amp  amp   run git pull --ff-only    return 2   done         br  -gt 0    amp  amp   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

User · Answer

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 - gt  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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   lt from-ref gt   lt to-ref gt    gt  amp 2     exit 2         -ne 2    amp  amp  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

User · Answer

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  amp  amp  for branch in   git branch   sed       q h d   G    tr -d        do git checkout  branch  amp  amp  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  amp  amp    for branch in   git branch   sed       q h d   G    tr -d          do git checkout  branch  amp  amp        git merge --ff-only    break done    git fetch --all  amp  amp         Fetches all refs from all remotes and continue with the next command if there has been no error  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    for branch in          do git checkout  branch  amp  amp  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  amp  amp  for branch in   git branch   sed          q h d   G       tr -d        do git checkout  branch  amp  amp  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  amp  amp  for branch in   git branch   sed       q h d   G    tr -d        do git checkout  branch  amp  amp  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

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

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