How do I clone a single branch in Git

Question

I have a local Git repository called  skeleton  that I use for storing project skeletons  It has a few branches  for different kinds of projects   casey agave    Projects skeleton  git branch   master   rails   c   c     If I want to check out the master branch for a new project  I can do  casey agave    Projects  git clone skeleton new Initialized empty Git repository in  Users casey Projects new  git    and everything is how I want it  Specifically  the new master branch points to the skeleton master branch  and I can push and pull to move around changes to the basic project setup   What doesn t work  however  is if I want to clone another branch  I can t get it so that I only pull the branch I want  for instance the rails branch  and then the new repository has a master branch that pushes to and pulls from the skeleton repository s rails branch  by default   Is there a good way to go about doing this  Or  maybe this isn t the way that Git wants me to structure things  and I m certainly open to that  Perhaps I should have multiple repositories  with the Ruby on Rails skeleton repository tracking the master skeleton repository  And any individual project cloning the Ruby on Rails skeleton repository

User · Answer

A little late but I wanted to add the solution I used to solve this problem. I found the solution here.

Anyway, the question seems to be asking 'how to start a new project from a branch of another repo?'

To this, the solution I used would be to first create a new repo in github or where ever. This will serve as the repo to your new project.

On your local machine, navigate to the project that has the branch you want to use as the template for your new project.

Run the command:

git push https://github.com/accountname/new-repo.git +old_branch:master

What this will do is push the old_branch to new-repo and make it the master branch of the new repo.

You then just have to clone the new repo down to your new project's local directory and you have a new project started at the old branch.

User · Answer

Similar to what  nosaiba-darwish said here  here This is what we usually do in our company  git clone -b  lt name of branch gt  --single-branch  lt git url gt  folder to clone locally

User · Answer

For the newbies like me  just run the code below git clone https   gitlab com repo repo git --branch  lt name of branch gt  --single-branch

User · Answer

git clone  lt url gt  --branch  lt branch gt  --single-branch   Just put in URL and branch name

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git clone --branch  branch-name   repo-URI   Example  git clone --branch dev https   github com ann cleaningmachine git   dev  This is the  branch-name  https   github com ann cleaningmachine git  This is the  repo-URI

User · Answer

This should work git clone --single-branch  lt branchname gt   lt remote-repo-url gt  git clone --branch  lt branchname gt   lt remote-repo-url gt

User · Answer

From git-clone man page   --single-branch is your friend during clone remember to use with --branch  lt branch name gt  or only remote primary HEAD will be cloned  master by default   Always remember to do Ctrl   F5 to read fresh source  not the one from cache  -   I didn t so didn t know about this option for long time

User · Answer

you can use this command to git single branch and rename the folder if you want to keep branched stand alone   git clone -b  branch-name  --single-branch  url    folder name    example   git clone -b mybranch --single-branch git   github repository git  project mybranch

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If you want a shallow clone  you can do this with   git clone -b mybranch --depth 1 https   example com myproject git localname   --depth 1 implies --single-branch

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You can try the long-winded way   mkdir newrepo git cd newrepo git git init git remote add origin file    path to original git fetch origin branchiwant refs remotes origin branchiwant git checkout -b branchiwant --track origin branchiwant   What this does is    Create and init an empty Git repository  Adds the original repository as a remote called origin  Fetches only the branch you require from the remote called origin  Creates and checks out a new branch that is set up to track the source branch you just cloned    Hopefully that will be something like what you are after

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One way is to execute the following   git clone user git-server project name git -b branch name  your folder  Where branch name is the branch of your choice and  quot  your folder quot  is the destination folder for that branch  It s true that this will bring other branches giving you the opportunity to merge back and forth  Update Now  starting with Git 1 7 10  you can now do this  git clone user git-server project name git -b branch name --single-branch  your folder

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Can be done in 2 steps  Clone the repository git clone  lt http url gt    Checkout the branch you want git checkout  BranchName

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You can do it by using the below command   git clone -b branch name --single-branch project url local folder to clone in

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For cloning a branch of Git you don t have the public key to  use this   git clone -b  lt branch gt   lt Git repository URL or clone URL you get from Git repository gt

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Note  the git1 7 10  April 2012  actually allows you to clone only one branch    clone only the remote primary HEAD  default  origin master  git clone  lt url gt  --single-branch    as in  git clone  lt url gt  --branch  lt branch gt  --single-branch   lt folder gt    You can see it in t5500-fetch-pack sh  test expect success  single branch clone      git clone --single-branch  quot file     pwd    quot  singlebranch    Tobu comments that   This is implicit when doing a shallow clone  This makes git clone --depth 1 the easiest way to save bandwidth   And since Git 1 9 0  February 2014   shallow clones support data transfer  push pull   so that option is even more useful now  See more at  quot Is git clone --depth 1  shallow clone  more useful than it makes out  quot     quot Undoing quot  a shallow clone is detailed at  quot Convert shallow clone to full clone quot   git 1 8 3     unshallow the current branch git fetch --unshallow    for getting back all the branches  see Peter Cordes  comment  git config remote origin fetch refs heads   refs remotes origin   git fetch --unshallow  As Chris comments   the magic line for getting missing branches to reverse --single-branch is  git v2 1 4    git config remote origin fetch  refs heads   refs remotes origin   git fetch --unshallow     With Git 2 26  Q1 2020    quot git clone --recurse-submodules --single-branch quot  now uses the same single-branch option when cloning the submodules  See commit 132f600  commit 4731957  21 Feb 2020  by Emily Shaffer  nasamuffin    Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit b22db26  05 Mar 2020   clone  pass --single-branch during --recurse-submodules Signed-off-by  Emily Shaffer Acked-by  Jeff King Previously  performing  quot git clone --recurse-submodules --single-branch quot  resulted in submodules cloning all branches even though the superproject cloned only one branch  Pipe --single-branch through the submodule helper framework to make it to  clone  later on

User · Answer

Clone only one branch  This is the easiest way  git clone -b BRANCH NAME --single-branch git bitbucket org     PROJECTNAME git

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Open the cmd  cd folder name    enter the path where to clone the branch  Just one command  git clone url of projecturltoclone -b branch name

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There are primarily 2 solutions for this   You need to specify the branch name with -b command switch  Here is the syntax of the command to clone the specific git branch  git clone -b  lt BRANCH NAME gt   lt GIT REMOTE URL gt   Example  git clone -b tahir https   github com Repository Project git  The following command will clone the branch tahir from the git repository The above command clones only the specific branch but fetches the details of other branches  You can view all branches details with command  git branch -a   You can use --single-branch flag to prevent fetching details of other branches like below  git clone -b  lt BRANCH NAME gt  --single-branch  lt GIT REMOTE URL gt   Example  git clone -b tahir --single-branch    https   github com Repository Project git  Now if you do a git branch -a  it will only show your current single branch that you have cloned and not all the branches  So it depends on you how you want it

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Let us take the example of flask repo  It has 3 branches in addition to master  Let us checkout the 1 1 x remote branch  clone the git repo  git clone https   github com pallets flask   cd into the repo   cd flask   fetch remote branch 1 1 x  git fetch origin 1 1 x   checkout the branch  git checkout 1 1 x   You will switch to the branch 1 1 x and it will track the remote 1 1 x branch

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Using Git version 1 7 3 1  on Windows   here s what I do   BRANCH is the name of the branch I want to checkout and  REMOTE REPO is the URL of the remote repository I want to clone from    mkdir  BRANCH cd  BRANCH git init git remote add -t  BRANCH -f origin  REMOTE REPO git checkout  BRANCH   The advantage of this approach is that subsequent git pull  or git fetch  calls will also just download the requested branch

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There are ample answers here which mention     We ll refer to this as  quot the 1st command quot  below   git clone -b branch name --single-branch   https   github com some project some project git     or some version of that  and a few which mention just     We ll refer to this as  quot the 2nd command quot  below   git clone -b branch name https   github com some project some project git     withOUT the --single-branch part  But  I d like to expound upon these two things a bit and show a more familiar set of equivalent commands so we can see what is happening with each under-the-hood  Let s assume that you have a remote repo on GitHub at https   github com micronucleus micronucleus git  with remote branches master and version 2 5  this is a real example you can actually run right now   Breakdown of the 2nd command from above  The 2nd command  git clone -b version 2 5 https   github com micronucleus micronucleus git  clones ALL REMOTE BRANCHES to your local PC  but then checks out the version 2 5 branch instead of the master branch  That one command is the equivalent of doing this  git clone https   github com micronucleus micronucleus git cd micronucleus    cd into the repo you just cloned git checkout version 2 5   To be pedantic  also delete the local  master  branch since   technically it won t exist yet since you haven t yet checked   it out with  git checkout master   which would create it from   your locally-stored remote-tracking branch   origin master  git branch -d master  The -b version 2 5 part automatically checked out the version 2 5 branch for us instead of master  git branch -a shows us that ALL branches  however  were cloned to our local PC  Here you can see our local branch version 2 5  which we are on  plus the locally-stored remote-tracking branches origin HEAD  which points to origin master   plus origin master  and origin version 2 5    git branch -a   version 2 5   remotes origin HEAD - gt  origin master   remotes origin master   remotes origin version 2 5  We can also look at what our fetch references are  You can either open up the  git config file to see them directly  or just run git config remote origin fetch    git config remote origin fetch  refs heads   refs remotes origin    You can see above that our git fetch command  which is also triggered by git pull since that is equivalent to git fetch  amp  amp  git merge  is configured to fetch ALL heads for ALL branches in the origin remote  I m not an expert on this part  but I believe that s what  refs heads   refs remotes origin   means  Breakdown of the 1st command from above  The 1st command  git clone -b version 2 5 --single-branch https   github com micronucleus micronucleus git  clones ONLY the version 2 5 branch to your local PC  and it also checks it out  That one command is the equivalent of doing this  in the end result at least  except that it also downloads much less data in the beginning since it only clones ONE branch NOT all of them   git clone https   github com micronucleus micronucleus git cd micronucleus    cd into the repo you just cloned git checkout version 2 5    Delete ALL other branches  including remote-tracking ones  which are not the     version 2 5  branch    One local branch git branch -d master   ALL other locally-stored remote-tracking branches git branch -dr origin HEAD  git branch -dr origin master    Fix your   git config  file so that  git fetch  does the right thing  fetching   ONLY the  version 2 5  branch head from the  origin version 2 5  remote branch  git config remote origin fetch    quot  refs heads version 2 5 refs remotes origin version 2 5 quot   The -b version 2 5 part caused the version 2 5 branch to be checked out instead of the master branch by default  as previously explained above   and the --single-branch part caused   NONE of the other branches to be cloned to our PC  and git fetch to be configured such that NONE of the other branches will ever be fetched when we call git fetch or git pull   This command truly cloned and will fetch only the one branch we wanted  and that s it  git branch -a shows us that ONLY the version 2 5 branch was cloned and checked out  Here we see by the   which branch is checked-out  and we see also that we have a locally-stored remote-tracking branch for origin version 2 5    git branch -a   version 2 5   remotes origin version 2 5  We can also look at what our fetch references are  You can either open up the  git config file to see them directly  or just run git config remote origin fetch    git config remote origin fetch  refs heads version 2 5 refs remotes origin version 2 5  You can see above that our git fetch command will only fetch the version 2 5 branch head from the origin version 2 5 remote branch  That s it  Beware that no other remote branches will ever be fetched  Summary  So  now you see that using -b branch name basically just ensures the branch name branch is checked-out after the clone  but still clones ALL remote branches  whereas adding also --single-branch ensures that ONLY branch name is cloned  fetched  pulled  and tracked  No other remote branches will be cloned to your PC whatsoever  Personally  I prefer the -b branch name option alone  because I want all branches cloned to my local PC  The one exception might be on a huge  shared mono-repo which has dozens  or even hundreds or thousands of remote branches  In that case  just use -b branch name --single-branch to clone just the one main branch you care about and be done  Better to download 50 GiB of data for the master branch in a huge mono-repo  for instance  than to download 200 GiB of data so you can have 2000 of your peers  branches they are working on too  References   Clone only one branch How do you stop tracking a remote branch in Git

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For cloning a specific branch you can do    git clone --branch yourBranchName git yourRepository git

[git] How do I clone a single branch in Git?

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