Can I recover a branch after its deletion in Git

Question

If I run git branch -d XYZ  is there a way to recover the branch  Is there a way to go back as if I didn t run the delete branch command

User · Answer

I rebased a branch from remote to try to clear a few commits I didn't want and was going to cherrypick the right ones that I wanted. Of course I wrote the SHAs wrong...

Here is how I found them (mostly an easier interface/interaction from things on answers here):

First, generate a list of loose commits in your log. Do this as soon as possible and stop working, as those may be dumped by the garbage collector.

git fsck --full --no-reflogs --unreachable --lost-found > lost

This creates a lost file with all the commits you will have to look at. To simplify our life, let's cut only the SHA from it:

cat lost | cut -d\  -f3 > commits

Now you have a commits file with all the commits you have to look.

Assuming you are using Bash, the final step:

for c in `cat commits`; do  git show $c; read; done

This will show you the diff and commit information for each of them. And wait for you to press Enter. Now write down all the ones you want, and then cherry-pick them in. After you are done, just Ctrl-C it.

User · Answer

If you like to use a GUI  you can perform the entire operation with gitk   gitk --reflog   This will allow you to see the branch s commit history as if the branch hadn t been deleted   Now simply right click on the most recent commit to the branch and select the menu option Create new branch

User · Answer

The top voted solution does actually more than requested   git checkout  lt sha gt  git checkout -b  lt branch gt    or   git checkout -b  lt branch gt   lt sha gt    move you to the new branch together with all recent changes you might have forgot to commit  This may not be your intention  especially when in the  panic mode  after losing the branch   A cleaner  and simpler  solution seems to be the one-liner  after you found the  lt sha gt  with git reflog    git branch  lt branch gt   lt sha gt    Now neither your current branch nor uncommited changes are affected  Instead only a new branch will be created all the way up to the  lt sha gt    If it is not the tip  it ll still work and you get a shorter branch  then you can retry with new  lt sha gt  and new branch name until you get it right   Finally you can rename the successfully restored branch into what it was named or anything else   git branch -m  lt restored branch gt   lt final branch gt    Needless to say  the key to success was to find the right commit  lt sha gt   so name your commits wisely

User · Answer

If you don t have a reflog  eg  because you re working in a bare repository which does not have the reflog enabled and the commit you want to recover was created recently  another option is to find recently created commit objects and look through them   From inside the  git objects directory run   find   -ctime -12h -type f   sed  s       g    git cat-file --batch-check   grep commit   This finds all objects  commits  files  tags etc   created in the last 12 hours and filters them to show only commits   Checking these is then a quick process   I d try the git-ressurect sh script mentioned in Jakub s answer first though

User · Answer

From my understanding if the branch to be deleted can be reached by another branch  you can delete it safely using  git branch -d  branch    and your work is not lost  Remember that a branch is not a snapshot  but a pointer to one  So when you delete a branch you delete a pointer   You won t even lose work if you delete a branch which cannot be reached by another one  Of course it won t be as easy as checking out the commit hash  but you can still do it  That s why Git is unable to delete a branch which cannot be reached by using -d  Instead you have to use  git branch -D  branch    This is part of a must watch video from Scott Chacon about Git  Check minute 58 00 when he talks about branches and how delete them   Introduction to Git with Scott Chacon of GitHub

User · Answer

Just using git reflog did not return the sha for me   Only the commit id  which is 8 chars long and a sha is way longer   So I used git reflog --no-abbrev  And then do the same as mentioned above  git checkout -b  lt branch gt   lt sha gt

User · Answer

I used the following commands to find and retrieve my deleted branch  The first steps are from gcb s description     git fsck --full --no-reflogs --unreachable --lost-found  gt  lost   cat lost   cut -d   -f3  gt  commits   cat commits   xargs -n 1 git log -n 1 --pretty oneline   Now look for the git commit id  GIT-SHA  based on the commit comments and use it in the command below  Checkout a new branch called NEW-BRANCH with the previously found GIT-SHA     git checkout -b NEW-BRANCH GIT-SHA

User · Answer

Most of the time unreachable commits are in the reflog  So  the first thing to try is to look at the reflog using the command git reflog  which display the reflog for HEAD    Perhaps something easier if the commit was part of a specific branch still existing is to use the command git reflog name-of-my-branch  It works also with a remote  for example if you forced push  additional advice  always prefer git push --force-with-lease instead that better prevent mistakes and is more recoverable       If your commits are not in your reflog  perhaps because deleted by a 3rd party tool that don t write in the reflog   I successfully recovered a branch by reseting my branch to the sha of the commit found using a command like that  it creates a file with all the dangling commits    git fsck --full --no-reflogs --unreachable --lost-found   grep commit   cut -d   -f3   xargs -n 1 git log -n 1 --pretty oneline  gt   git lost-found txt     If you should use it more than one time  or want to save it somewhere   you could also create an alias with that command     git config --global alias rescue   git fsck --full --no-reflogs --unreachable --lost-found   grep commit   cut -d   -f3   xargs -n 1 git log -n 1 --pretty oneline  gt   git lost-found txt    and use it with git rescue  To investigate found commits  you could display each commit using some commands to look into them   To display the commit metadata  author  creation date and commit message    git cat-file -p 48540dfa438ad8e442b18e57a5a255c0ecad0560   To see also the diffs   git log -p 48540dfa438ad8e442b18e57a5a255c0ecad0560   Once you found your commit  then create a branch on this commit with   git branch commit rescued 48540dfa438ad8e442b18e57a5a255c0ecad0560     For the ones that are under Windows and likes GUIs  you could easily recover commits  and also uncommited staged files  with GitExtensions by using the feature Repository    Git maintenance    Recover lost objects       A similar command to easily recover staged files deleted  https   stackoverflow com a 58853981 717372

User · Answer

For recovering a deleted branch  First go through the reflog history   git reflog -n 60   Where n refers to the last n commits  Then find the proper head and create a branch with that head   git branch testbranch HEAD  30

User · Answer

For GitHub users without Git installed   If you want to restore it from GitHub website  you can use their API to get a list of repo-related events   First   find those SHAs  commit hashes    curl -i https   api github com repos PublicUser PublicRepo events      or for private repos   curl -su YourUserName https   api github com repos YourUserName YourProject events   will be prompted for GitHub password     If the repo rquires two-factor auth  see the comments on this answer below      Next   go to GitHub and create a new temporary branch which will be deleted for ever  Chrome is preferable      nbsp  nbsp       nbsp Go to branches and delete that one    nbsp  nbsp       nbsp On the same page  without reloading  open DevTools  Network panel  Now prepare      nbsp  nbsp       nbsp Click restore  You will notice a new  line   Right-click on it and select  Copy as cURL  and save this text in some editor    nbsp  nbsp       nbsp Append to the end of the copied line of code  this one  -H  Cookie     You should now get something like       curl  https   github com UserName ProjectName branches branch BranchSHA amp name BranchName  -H  Cookie   -H  Origin  https   github com  -H  Accept-Encoding  gzip  deflate  br  -H  Accept-Language  en-US  -H  User-Agent  User-Agent  -H  Content-Type  application x-www-form-urlencoded  charset UTF-8  -H  Accept       -H  Referer  https   github com UserName ProjectName branches  -H  X-Requested-With  XMLHttpRequest  -H  Connection  keep-alive  --data  utf8  E2 9C 93 amp authenticity token token  --compressed   Final step   replace  BranchSHA  with your SHA-hash and BranchName with desired name  BTW  it is great hack to rename branch from web   If you were not too slow  you need to make this request anyhow  For example  just copy-paste to a terminal    P S   I realize this may not be the  simplest solution  or the  right  solution  but it is offered in case someone finds it useful

User · Answer

Adding to tfe s answer  you can recover with this process mentioned  unless it s commits are not garbage collected  Git branch is simply a pointer to a particular commit in the commit tree  But if you delete the pointer  and the commits on that branch are not merged into other existing branch  then git treats it as dangling commits and removes them during garbage collection  which it may run automatically periodically   If your branch wasn t merged to an existing branch  and if it was garbage collected  then you will loose all commits up until the point from where branch was forked from an existing branch

User · Answer

Make sure to perform all of this locally  and confirm your repo is in the state you desire before pushing to Bitbucket Cloud  It may also be a good idea to clone your current repo  and test these solutions out first    If you just deleted the branch  you ll see something like this in your terminal        Deleted branch  lt your-branch gt   was  lt sha gt     2 To restore the branch  use        git checkout -b  lt branch gt   lt sha gt    If you don t know the  sha  off the top of your head  you can    Find the  sha  for the commit at the tip of your deleted branch using         git reflog    To restore the branch  use         git checkout -b  lt branch gt   lt sha gt    If your commits are not in your reflog    You can try recovering a branch by reseting your branch to the sha of the commit found using a command like         git fsck --full --no-reflogs --unreachable --lost-found   grep commit   cut -d   -f3   xargs -n 1 git log -n 1 --pretty oneline  gt   git lost-found txt   2 You can then display each commit using one of these        git log -p  lt commit gt      git cat-file -p  lt commit gt

User · Answer

First go to git batch the move to your project like    cd android studio project cd Myproject then type   git reflog   You all have a list of the changes and the reference number take the ref number then checkout from android studio or from the git betcha  another solution take the ref number and go to android studio click on git branches down then click on checkout tag or revision past the reference number then lol you have the branches

User · Answer

A related issue  I came to this page after searching for  how to know what are deleted branches    While deleting many old branches  felt I mistakenly deleted one of the newer branches  but didn t know the name to recover it   To know what branches are deleted recently  do the below   If you go to your Git URL  which will look something like this   https   your-website-name orgs your-org-name dashboard   Then you can see the feed  of what is deleted  by whom  in the recent past

User · Answer

IF you are using VSCode    and you synced your branch with the server at some point before deleting it    Note that git branch delete only deletes the local copy  not the copy on the server  First  in the Git panel  git icon on left toolbar   look through the branches and see if your branch is still there under  quot origin your branch name quot   If so  just select that and you should get your code back  suggest that you immediately copy paste save it locally somewhere else   If you didn t see an  quot origin your branch name quot   Install the GitLens extension   This allows you to visually poke around in the server repositories and locate the copy you synced to the server  If you have multiple repositories  note that it might be necessary to have at least one file opened from the desired repository in order to make the repository appear in GitLens  Then   Open the GitLens panel  Expand the repository  You should see a list of categories  Branches   Contributors   Remotes   Stashes   etc   You should find YourLostTreasure under  quot Branches quot  or possibly under  quot Remotes - gt  Origins quot   Hopefully  you will see a branch with the desired name - if you expand it  you should see the files you changed in that branch  Double-click the file names to open them  and immediately back up that code  If you don t immediately see your lost branch  poke around and if you find something promising  immediately open it and grab the code  I had to poke around quite a bit until I found TheGoldenBranch  and even then the code was missing the last one or two saves  possibly because I failed to sync to server before attempting-a-Branch-Merge-but-accidentally-clicking-Branch-Delete   My search was unnecessarily lengthened because when I first found the branch I wasn t completely sure the name was correct so kept looking  and it took some time to re-find that first branch   Thus  Carpe Carpum and then keep looking

User · Answer

If you removed the branch and forgot it s commit id you can do this command  git log --graph --decorate   git rev-list -g --all   After this you ll be able to see all commits  Then you can do git checkout to this id and under this commit create a new branch

User · Answer

Yes  you should be able to do git reflog --no-abbrev and find the SHA1 for the commit at the tip of your deleted branch  then just git checkout  sha   And once you re at that commit  you can just git checkout -b  branchname  to recreate the branch from there   Credit to  Cascabel for this condensed one-liner version and  Snowcrash for how to obtain the sha  If you ve just deleted the branch you ll see something like this in your terminal Deleted branch  lt your-branch gt   was  lt sha gt    Then just use that  lt sha gt  in this one-liner  git checkout -b  lt your-branch gt   lt sha gt

User · Answer

Adding to tfe answer  there is also the git-resurrect sh script in the contrib  area of the Git sources  in git git repository   which might help you      git-resurrect  lt name gt  attempts to find traces of a branch tip   called  lt name gt   and tries to resurrect it   Currently  the reflog is   searched for checkout messages  and with -r also merge messages   With   -m and -t  the history of all refs is scanned for Merge  lt name gt  into   other Merge  lt other gt  into  lt name gt   respectively  commit subjects  which   is rather slow but allows you to resurrect other people s topic   branches

User · Answer

I did this on the computer which i delete the branch   git reflog  response   74b2383  develope  HEAD  1   checkout  moving from master to develope 40ef328  HEAD - gt  master  origin master  origin HEAD  HEAD  2   checkout  moving from develope to master 74b2383  develope  HEAD  3   checkout  moving from master to develope 40ef328  HEAD - gt  master  origin master  origin HEAD  HEAD  4   reset  moving to HEAD 40ef328  HEAD - gt  master  origin master  origin HEAD  HEAD  5   clone  from http   LOCALGITSERVER myBigProject Android git   and i retrieve the branch with this command    git checkout -b newBranchName 74b2383

User · Answer

BIG YES  if you are using GIT follow these simple steps https   confluence atlassian com bbkb how-to-restore-a-deleted-branch-765757540 html  if you are using smartgit and already push that branch go to origin  find that branch and right click then checkout

[git] Can I recover a branch after its deletion in Git?

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