How to commit my current changes to a different branch in Git

Question

Sometimes it happens that I make some changes in my working directory  and I realize that these changes should be committed in a branch different to the current one  This usually happens when I want to try out new things or do some testing and I forget to create a new branch beforehand  but I don t want to commit dirty code to the master branch   So  how can I make that uncommitted changes  or changes stored in the index  be committed to a different branch than the current one

User · Answer

You can just create a new branch and switch onto it. Commit your changes then:

git branch dirty
git checkout dirty
// And your commit follows ...

Alternatively, you can also checkout an existing branch (just git checkout <name>). But only, if there are no collisions (the base of all edited files is the same as in your current branch). Otherwise you will get a message.

User · Answer

The other answers suggesting checking out the other branch  then committing to it  only work if the checkout is possible given the local modifications  If not  you re in the most common use case for git stash   git stash git checkout other-branch git stash pop   The first stash hides away your changes  basically making a temporary commit   and the subsequent stash pop re-applies them  This lets Git use its merge capabilities   If  when you try to pop the stash  you run into merge conflicts    the next steps depend on what those conflicts are  If all the stashed changes indeed belong on that other branch  you re simply going to have to sort through them - it s a consequence of having made your changes on the wrong branch   On the other hand  if you ve really messed up  and your work tree has a mix of changes for the two branches  and the conflicts are just in the ones you want to commit back on the original branch  you can save some work  As usual  there are a lot of ways to do this  Here s one  starting from after you pop and see the conflicts     Unstage everything  warning  this leaves files with conflicts in your tree  git reset    Add the things you  do  want to commit here git add -p       or maybe git add -i git commit    The stash still exists  pop only throws it away if it applied cleanly git checkout original-branch git stash pop    Add the changes meant for this branch git add -p git commit    And throw away the rest git reset --hard   Alternatively  if you realize ahead of the time that this is going to happen  simply commit the things that belong on the current branch  You can always come back and amend that commit   git add -p git commit git stash git checkout other-branch git stash pop   And of course  remember that this all took a bit of work  and avoid it next time  perhaps by putting your current branch name in your prompt by adding     git ps1  to your PS1 environment variable in your bashrc file   See for example the Git in Bash documentation

User · Answer

git checkout my other branch git add my file my other file git commit -m   And provide your commit message

[git] How to commit my current changes to a different branch in Git

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