How do I make a Git commit in the past

Question

I m converting everything over to Git for my own personal use and I found some old versions of a file already in the repository   How do I commit it to the history in the correct order according the file s  quot date modified quot  so I have an accurate history of the file  I was told something like this would work  git filter-branch --env-filter  quot GIT AUTHOR DATE     --index-filter  quot git commit path to file --date  quot  --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

User · Answer

In my case  while using the --date option  my git process crashed  May be I did something terrible  And as a result some index lock file appeared  So I manually deleted the  lock files from  git folder and executed  for all modified files to be commited in passed dates and it worked this time  Thanx for all the answers here   git commit --date   date --date  2 day ago    -am  update

User · Answer

In my case over time I had saved a bunch of versions of myfile as myfile bak  myfile old  myfile 2010  backups myfile etc   I wanted to put myfile s history in git using their modification dates  So rename the oldest to myfile   git add myfile  then git commit --date  modification date from ls -l  myfile  rename next oldest to myfile  another git commit with --date  repeat     To automate this somewhat  you can use shell-foo to get the modification time of the file  I started with ls -l and cut  but stat 1  is more direct  git commit --date    x60 stat -c  y myfile  x60   myfile

User · Answer

To make a commit that looks like it was done in the past you have to set both GIT AUTHOR DATE and GIT COMMITTER DATE   GIT AUTHOR DATE   date -d       GIT COMMITTER DATE   GIT AUTHOR DATE  git commit -m         where date -d      can be exact date like 2019-01-01 12 00 00 or relative like 5 months ago 24 days ago   To see both dates in git log use   git log --pretty fuller   This also works for merge commits   GIT AUTHOR DATE   date -d       GIT COMMITTER DATE   GIT AUTHOR DATE  git merge  lt branchname gt  --no-ff

User · Answer

This is an old question but I recently stumbled upon it  git commit --date  2021-01-01 12 12 00  -m  quot message quot  worked properly and verified it on GitHub

User · Answer

I know this question is quite old  but that s what actually worked for me   git commit --date  10 day ago  -m  Your commit message

User · Answer

Or just use a fake-git-history to generate it for a specific data range

User · Answer

The advice you were given is flawed  Unconditionally setting GIT AUTHOR DATE in an --env-filter would rewrite the date of every commit  Also  it would be unusual to use git commit inside --index-filter   You are dealing with multiple  independent problems here   Specifying Dates Other Than    now     Each commit has two dates  the author date and the committer date  You can override each by supplying values through the environment variables GIT AUTHOR DATE and GIT COMMITTER DATE for any command that writes a new commit  See    Date Formats    in git-commit 1  or the below    Git internal format    lt unix timestamp gt   lt time zone offset gt   e g   1112926393  0200 RFC 2822              e g  Thu  07 Apr 2005 22 13 13  0200 ISO 8601              e g  2005-04-07T22 13 13   The only command that writes a new commit during normal use is git commit  It also has a --date option that lets you directly specify the author date  Your anticipated usage includes git filter-branch --env-filter also uses the environment variables mentioned above  these are part of the    env    after which the option is named  see    Options    in git-filter-branch 1  and the underlying    plumbing    command git-commit-tree 1    Inserting a File Into a Single ref History  If your repository is very simple  i e  you only have a single branch  no tags   then you can probably use git rebase to do the work   In the following commands  use the object name  SHA-1 hash  of the commit instead of    A     Do not forget to use one of the    date override    methods when you run git commit   ---A---B---C---o---o---o   master  git checkout master git checkout A 0 git add path to file git commit --date  whenever  git tag  new-commit -m delete me later  git checkout - git rebase --onto  new-commit A git tag -d  new-commit  ---A---N                       was   new-commit   but we delete the tag                     B ---C ---o---o---o   master   If you wanted to update A to include the new file  instead of creating a new commit where it was added   then use git commit --amend instead of git commit  The result would look like this   ---A ---B ---C ---o---o---o   master   The above works as long as you can name the commit that should be the parent of your new commit  If you actually want your new file to be added via a new root commit  no parents   then you need something a bit different   B---C---o---o---o   master  git checkout master git checkout --orphan new-root git rm -rf   git add path to file GIT AUTHOR DATE  whenever  git commit git checkout - git rebase --root --onto new-root git branch -d new-root  N                        was new-root  but we deleted it       B ---C ---o---o---o   master   git checkout --orphan is relatively new  Git 1 7 2   but there are other ways of doing the same thing that work on older versions of Git   Inserting a File Into a Multi-ref History  If your repository is more complex  i e  it has more than one ref  branches  tags  etc     then you will probably need to use git filter-branch  Before using git filter-branch  you should make a backup copy of your entire repository  A simple tar archive of your entire working tree  including the  git directory  is sufficient  git filter-branch does make backup refs  but it is often easier to recover from a not-quite-right filtering by just deleting your  git directory and restoring it from your backup   Note  The examples below use the lower-level command git update-index --add instead of git add  You could use git add  but you would first need to copy the file from some external location to the expected path  --index-filter runs its command in a temporary GIT WORK TREE that is empty    If you want your new file to be added to every existing commit  then you can do this   new file   git hash-object -w path to file  git filter-branch     --index-filter        git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644    new file   path to file      --tag-name-filter cat     -- --all git reset --hard   I do not really see any reason to change the dates of the existing commits with --env-filter  GIT AUTHOR DATE       If you did use it  you would have make it conditional so that it would rewrite the date for every commit   If you want your new file to appear only in the commits after some existing commit     A      then you can do this   file path path to file before commit   git rev-parse --verify A  file blob   git hash-object -w   file path   git filter-branch     --index-filter        if x   git rev-list -1   GIT COMMIT  --not    before commit     amp  amp         test -n   x   then          git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644    file blob  file path       fi          --tag-name-filter cat     -- --all git reset --hard   If you want the file to be added via a new commit that is to be inserted into the middle of your history  then you will need to generate the new commit prior to using git filter-branch and add --parent-filter to git filter-branch   file path path to file before commit   git rev-parse --verify A   git checkout master git checkout   before commit  git add   file path  git commit --date  whenever  new commit   git rev-parse --verify HEAD  file blob   git rev-parse --verify HEAD   file path   git checkout -  git filter-branch     --parent-filter  sed -e s  before commit  new commit g      --index-filter        if x   git rev-list -1   GIT COMMIT  --not    new commit     amp  amp         test -n   x   then          git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644    file blob  file path       fi          --tag-name-filter cat     -- --all git reset --hard   You could also arrange for the file to be first added in a new root commit  create your new root commit via the    orphan    method from the git rebase section  capture it in new commit   use the  unconditional --index-filter  and a --parent-filter like  sed -e   s    -p  new commit

User · Answer

You can always change a date on your computer  make a commit  then change the date back and push

User · Answer

You can create the commit as usual  but when you commit  set the environment variables GIT AUTHOR DATE and GIT COMMITTER DATE to the appropriate datetimes   Of course  this will make the commit at the tip of your branch  i e   in front of the current HEAD commit   If you want to push it back farther in the repo  you have to get a bit fancy  Let s say you have this history   o--o--o--o--o   And you want your new commit  marked as  X   to appear second   o--X--o--o--o--o   The easiest way would be to branch from the first commit  add your new commit  then rebase all other commits on top of the new one  Like so     git checkout -b new commit  desired parent of new commit   git add new file   GIT AUTHOR DATE  your date  GIT COMMITTER DATE  your date  git commit -m  new  old  files    git checkout master   git rebase new commit   git branch -d new commit

User · Answer

The following is what I use to commit changes on foo to N 1 days in the past   git add foo git commit -m  Update foo  git commit --amend --date    date -v-1d     If you want to commit to a even older date  say 3 days back  just change the date argument  date -v-3d   That s really useful when you forget to commit something yesterday  for instance   UPDATE  --date also accepts expressions like --date  3 days ago  or even --date  yesterday   So we can reduce it to one line command   git add foo   git commit --date  yesterday  -m  Update

[git] How do I make a Git commit in the past?

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