Git Recover deleted remote branch

Question

I need to recover two Git branches that I somehow deleted during a push   These two branches were created on a different system and then pushed to my  shared   github  repository   On my system  I  apparently  retrieved the branches during a fetch     myfolder gt  git fetch remote  Counting objects  105  done  remote  Compressing objects  100   58 58   done  remote  Total 62  delta 29   reused 0  delta 0  Unpacking objects  100   62 62   done  From github com mygiturl     new branch       contact page - gt  origin contact page    731d1bb  e8b68cc  homepage   - gt  origin homepage     new branch       new pictures - gt  origin new pictures   Right after that I did a push to send my local changes up to the central repo  For some reason  these branches were deleted from both my local system and the central repo     myfolder gt  git push Counting objects  71  done  Delta compression using up to 2 threads  Compressing objects  100   43 43   done  Writing objects  100   49 49   4 99 KiB  done  Total 49  delta 33   reused 0  delta 0  To git github com mygiturl git  -  deleted          contact page    e8b68cc   731d1bb homepage - gt  homepage  forced update     bb7e9f2  e0d061c  master - gt  master  -  deleted          new pictures    e38ac2e  bb7e9f2  origin HEAD - gt  origin HEAD    731d1bb  e8b68cc  origin homepage - gt  origin homepage    e38ac2e  bb7e9f2  origin master - gt  origin master     new branch       origin contact page - gt  origin contact page     new branch       origin new pictures - gt  origin new pictures   It s not terribly easy to get the branches off of their birthplace machine  so I d like to try and recover them from my local if possible   All of the git  undo  information I ve googled has to with recovering lost commits  I don t think that applies here  since I don t have commit UIDs for these branches   I d like to know how I can get these back  I d also like to know how they were deleted in the first place and how I can avoid this in the future   EDIT  by request  here s my repo configuration  user name Craig Walker user email github softcraft ca alias unadd reset HEAD core repositoryformatversion 0 core filemode true core bare false core logallrefupdates true core ignorecase true remote origin fetch  refs heads   refs remotes origin   remote origin url git github com MyGitURL git remote origin mirror true branch master remote origin branch master merge refs heads master alias undo reset --hard alias test push -f ci HEAD master alias st status alias ci commit alias br branch alias co checkout alias ch checkout alias df diff alias lg log -p alias who shortlog -s -- remote ci url ContinuousIntegrationGitURL remote ci fetch  refs heads   refs remotes ci   branch photo remote origin branch photo merge refs heads photos remote foo url FooGitURL remote foo fetch  refs heads   refs remotes cynthia   branch homepage remote origin branch homepage merge refs heads homepage

User · Answer

find out commit id  git reflog  recover local branch you deleted by mistake  git branch need-recover-branch-name commitId  push need-recover-branch-name again if you deleted remote branch too before  git push origin need-recover-branch-name

User · Answer

Your deleted branches are not lost  they were copied into origin contact page and origin new pictures    remote tracking branches    by the fetch you showed  they were also pushed back out by the push you showed  but they were pushed into refs remotes origin  instead of refs heads    Check git log origin contact page and git log origin new pictures to see if your local copies are    up to date    with whatever you think should be there  If any new commits were pushed onto those branches  from some other repo  between the fetch and push that you showed  you may have    lost    those  but probably you could probably find them in the other repo that most recently pushed those branches    Fetch Push Conflict  It looks like you are fetching in a normal     remote mode     remote refs heads  are stored locally in refs remotes origin    but pushing in    mirror mode     local refs  are pushed onto remote refs    Check your  git config and reconcile the remote origin fetch and remote origin push settings   Make a Backup  Before trying any changes  make a simple tar or zip archive or your whole local repo  That way  if you do not like what happens  you can try again from a restored repo   Option A  Reconfigure as a Mirror  If you intend to use your remote repo as a mirror of your local one  do this   git branch contact page origin contact page  amp  amp  git branch new pictures origin new pictures  amp  amp  git config remote origin fetch   refs   refs     amp  amp  git config --unset remote origin push  amp  amp  git config remote origin mirror true   You might also eventually want to do delete all your refs remotes origin  refs  since they are not useful if you are operating in mirror mode  your normal branches take the place of the usual remote tracking branches    Option B  Reconfigure as a Normal Remote  But since it seems that you are using this remote repo with multiple    work    repos  you probably do not want to use mirror mode  You might try this   git config push default tracking  amp  amp  git config --unset remote origin push git config --unset remote origin mirror   Then  you will eventually want to delete the bogus refs remotes origin refs in your remote repo  git push origin  refs remotes origin contact page  refs remotes origin new pictures       Test Push  Try git push --dry-run to see what it git push would do without having it make any changes on the remote repo  If you do not like what it says it is going to do  recover from your backup  tar zip  and try the other option

User · Answer

I think that you have a mismatched config for  fetch  and  push  so this has caused default fetch push to not round trip properly  Fortunately you have fetched the branches that you subsequently deleted so you should be able to recreate them with an explicit push   git push origin origin contact page contact page origin new pictures new pictures

User · Answer

The data still exists out in github  you can create a new branch from the old data   git checkout origin BranchName  get a readonly pointer to the old branch git checkout    b BranchName  create a new branch from the old git push origin BranchName  publish the new branch

User · Answer

If your organization uses JIRA or another similar system that is tied into git  you can find the commits listed on the ticket itself and click the links to the code changes  Github deletes the branch but still has the commits available for cherry-picking

User · Answer

I m not an expert  But you can try  git fsck --full --no-reflogs   grep commit   to find the HEAD commit of deleted branch and get them back

User · Answer

It may seem as being too cautious  but I frequently zip a copy of whatever I ve been working on before I make source control changes  In a Gitlab project I m working on  I recently deleted a remote branch by mistake that I wanted to keep after merging a merge request  It turns out all I had to do to get it back with the commit history was push again  The merge request was still tracked by Gitlab  so it still shows the blue  merged  label to the right of the branch  I still zipped my local folder in case something bad happened

User · Answer

just two commands save my life  1  This will list down all previous HEADs  git reflog   2  This will revert the HEAD to commit that you deleted   git reset --hard  lt your deleted commit gt  ex  git reset --hard b4b2c02

User · Answer

If the delete is recent enough  Like an Oh-NO  moment  you should still have a message    Deleted branch  lt branch name gt   was abcdefghi    you can still run   git checkout abcdefghi  git checkout -b  lt some new branch name or the old one gt

[git] Git: Recover deleted (remote) branch

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