Move the most recent commit s to a new branch with Git

Question

I d like to move the last several commits I ve committed to master to a new branch and take master back to before those commits were made  Unfortunately  my Git-fu is not strong enough yet  any help   I e  How can I go from this  master A - B - C - D - E   to this   newbranch     C - D - E                master A - B

User · Answer

Much simpler solution using git stash

Here's a far simpler solution for commits to the wrong branch. Starting on branch master that has three mistaken commits:

git reset HEAD~3
git stash
git checkout newbranch
git stash pop

When to use this?

If your primary purpose is to roll back master
You want to keep file changes
You don't care about the messages on the mistaken commits
You haven't pushed yet
You want this to be easy to memorize
You don't want complications like temporary/new branches, finding and copying commit hashes, and other headaches

What this does, by line number

Undoes the last three commits (and their messages) to master, yet leaves all working files intact
Stashes away all the working file changes, making the master working tree exactly equal to the HEAD~3 state
Switches to an existing branch newbranch
Applies the stashed changes to your working directory and clears the stash

You can now use git add and git commit as you normally would. All new commits will be added to newbranch.

What this doesn't do

It doesn't leave random temporary branches cluttering your tree
It doesn't preserve the mistaken commit messages, so you'll need to add a new commit message to this new commit
Update! Use up-arrow to scroll through your command buffer to reapply the prior commit with its commit message (thanks @ARK)

Goals

The OP stated the goal was to "take master back to before those commits were made" without losing changes and this solution does that.

I do this at least once a week when I accidentally make new commits to master instead of develop. Usually I have only one commit to rollback in which case using git reset HEAD^ on line 1 is a simpler way to rollback just one commit.

Don't do this if you pushed master's changes upstream

Someone else may have pulled those changes. If you are only rewriting your local master there's no impact when it's pushed upstream, but pushing a rewritten history to collaborators can cause headaches.

User · Answer

For those wondering why it works  as I was at first    You want to go back to C  and move D and E to the new branch   Here s what it looks like at first   A-B-C-D-E  HEAD                  master   After git branch newBranch       newBranch           A-B-C-D-E  HEAD                  master   After git reset --hard HEAD 2       newBranch           A-B-C-D-E  HEAD          master   Since a branch is just a pointer  master pointed to the last commit   When you made newBranch  you simply made a new pointer to the last commit   Then using git reset you moved the master pointer back two commits   But since you didn t move newBranch  it still points to the commit it originally did

User · Answer

This doesn t  move  them in the technical sense but it has the same effect   A--B--C   branch-foo         -- I wanted them here         D--E--F--G   branch-bar         -- -- -- Opps wrong branch   While on branch-bar    git reset --hard D   remember the SHAs for E  F  G  or E and G for a range   A--B--C   branch-foo            D- E--F--G  detached     --  branch-bar   Switch to branch-foo   git cherry-pick E  G  A--B--C--E --F --G   branch-foo       E--F--G detached  This can be ignored           D--H--I  branch-bar   Now you won t need to worry about the detached branch because it is basically like they are in the trash can waiting for the day it gets garbage collected  Eventually some time in the far future it will look like   A--B--C--E --F --G --L--M--N--     branch-foo            D--H--I--J--K--      branch-bar

User · Answer

Most of the solutions here count the amount of commits you d like to go back  I think this is an error prone methodology  Counting would require recounting  You can simply pass the commit hash of the commit you want to be at HEAD or in other words  the commit you d like to be the last commit via   Notice see commit hash  To avoid this  1  git checkout master  2  git branch  lt feature branch gt  master  3  git reset --hard  lt commit hash gt   4  git push -f origin master

User · Answer

In General     The method exposed by sykora is the best option in this case  But sometimes is not the easiest and it s not a general method  For a general method use git cherry-pick   To achieve what OP wants  its a 2-step process   Step 1 - Note which commits from master you want on a newbranch  Execute  git checkout master git log   Note the hashes of  say 3  commits you want on newbranch  Here I shall use  C commit  9aa1233 D commit  453ac3d E commit  612ecb3       Note  You can use the first seven characters or   the whole commit hash   Step 2 - Put them on the newbranch  git checkout newbranch git cherry-pick 612ecb3 git cherry-pick 453ac3d git cherry-pick 9aa1233   OR  on Git 1 7 2   use ranges   git checkout newbranch git cherry-pick 612ecb3 1  9aa1233   git cherry-pick applies those three commits to newbranch

User · Answer

If you just need to move all your unpushed commits to a new branch  then you just need to    create a new branch from the current one  git branch new-branch-name push your new branch  git push origin new-branch-name revert your old current  branch to the last pushed stable state  git reset --hard origin old-branch-name   Some people also have other upstreams rather than origin   they should use appropriate upstream

User · Answer

You can do this is just 3  simple step that i used     1  make new branch where you want to commit you recent update     git branch  lt branch name gt     2   Find  Recent Commit Id for commit on new branch    git log  3   Copy that commit id  note that Most Recent commit list take place on top  so you can find your commit  you also find this via message    git cherry-pick d34bcef232f6c      you can also provide some rang of commit id   git cherry-pick d34bcef   86d2aec  Now your job done  If you picked correct id and correct branch then you will success  So before do this be careful  else another problem can occur     Now you can push your code   git push

User · Answer

1  Create a new branch  which moves all your changes to new branch   git checkout -b new branch   2  Then go back to old branch   git checkout master   3  Do git rebase   git rebase -i  lt short-hash-of-B-commit gt    4  Then the opened editor contains last 3 commit information       pick  lt C s hash gt  C pick  lt D s hash gt  D pick  lt E s hash gt  E       5  Change pick to drop in all those 3 commits  Then save and close the editor        drop  lt C s hash gt  C drop  lt D s hash gt  D drop  lt E s hash gt  E       6  Now last 3 commits are removed from current branch  master   Now push the branch forcefully  with   sign before branch name   git push origin  master

User · Answer

Simplest way to do this  1  Rename master branch to your newbranch  assuming you are on master branch   git branch -m newbranch  2  Create master branch from the commit that you wish  git checkout -b master  lt seven char commit id gt    e g  git checkout -b master a34bc22

User · Answer

Moving to an existing branch If you want to move your commits to an existing branch  it will look like this  git checkout existingbranch git merge master git checkout master git reset --hard HEAD 3   Go back 3 commits  You  will  lose uncommitted work  git checkout existingbranch  You can store uncommitted edits to your stash before doing this  using git stash  Once complete  you can retrieve the stashed uncommitted edits with git stash pop Moving to a new branch WARNING  This method works because you are creating a new branch with the first command  git branch newbranch  If you want to move commits to an existing branch you need to merge your changes into the existing branch before executing git reset --hard HEAD 3  see Moving to an existing branch above   If you don t merge your changes first  they will be lost  Unless there are other circumstances involved  this can be easily done by branching and rolling back     Note  Any changes not committed will be lost  git branch newbranch        Create a new branch  saving the desired commits git reset --hard HEAD 3     Move master back by 3 commits  Make sure you know how many commits you need to go back  git checkout newbranch      Go to the new branch that still has the desired commits  But do make sure how many commits to go back  Alternatively  you can instead of HEAD 3  simply provide the hash of the commit  or the reference like origin master  you want to  quot revert back to quot  on the master   current  branch  e g  git reset --hard a1b2c3d4   1 You will only be  quot losing quot  commits from the master branch  but don t worry  you ll have those commits in newbranch  WARNING  With Git version 2 0 and later  if you later git rebase the new branch upon the original  master  branch  you may need an explicit --no-fork-point option during the rebase to avoid losing the carried-over commits   Having branch autosetuprebase always set makes this more likely   See John Mellor s answer for details

User · Answer

Most previous answers are dangerously wrong   Do NOT do this   git branch -t newbranch git reset --hard HEAD 3 git checkout newbranch   As the next time you run git rebase  or git pull --rebase  those 3 commits would be silently discarded from newbranch   see explanation below   Instead do this   git reset --keep HEAD 3 git checkout -t -b newbranch git cherry-pick   HEAD  2     First it discards the 3 most recent commits  --keep is like --hard  but safer  as fails rather than throw away uncommitted changes   Then it forks off newbranch  Then it cherry-picks those 3 commits back onto newbranch  Since they re no longer referenced by a branch  it does that by using git s reflog  HEAD  2  is the commit that HEAD used to refer to 2 operations ago  i e  before we 1  checked out newbranch and 2  used git reset to discard the 3 commits    Warning  the reflog is enabled by default  but if you ve manually disabled it  e g  by using a  bare  git repository   you won t be able to get the 3 commits back after running git reset --keep HEAD 3   An alternative that doesn t rely on the reflog is     newbranch will omit the 3 most recent commits  git checkout -b newbranch HEAD 3 git branch --set-upstream-to oldbranch   Cherry-picks the extra commits from oldbranch  git cherry-pick   oldbranch   Discards the 3 most recent commits from oldbranch  git branch --force oldbranch oldbranch 3    if you prefer you can write   -1  - the previously checked out branch - instead of oldbranch      Technical explanation  Why would git rebase discard the 3 commits after the first example  It s because git rebase with no arguments enables the --fork-point option by default  which uses the local reflog to try to be robust against the upstream branch being force-pushed   Suppose you branched off origin master when it contained commits M1  M2  M3  then made three commits yourself   M1--M2--M3   lt -- origin master                      T1--T2--T3   lt -- topic   but then someone rewrites history by force-pushing origin master to remove M2   M1--M3    lt -- origin master      M2--M3--T1--T2--T3   lt -- topic   Using your local reflog  git rebase can see that you forked from an earlier incarnation of the origin master branch  and hence that the M2 and M3 commits are not really part of your topic branch  Hence it reasonably assumes that since M2 was removed from the upstream branch  you no longer want it in your topic branch either once the topic branch is rebased   M1--M3    lt -- origin master              T1 --T2 --T3    lt -- topic  rebased    This behavior makes sense  and is generally the right thing to do when rebasing   So the reason that the following commands fail   git branch -t newbranch git reset --hard HEAD 3 git checkout newbranch   is because they leave the reflog in the wrong state  Git sees newbranch as having forked off the upstream branch at a revision that includes the 3 commits  then the reset --hard rewrites the upstream s history to remove the commits  and so next time you run git rebase it discards them like any other commit that has been removed from the upstream   But in this particular case we want those 3 commits to be considered as part of the topic branch  To achieve that  we need to fork off the upstream at the earlier revision that doesn t include the 3 commits  That s what my suggested solutions do  hence they both leave the reflog in the correct state   For more details  see the definition of --fork-point in the git rebase and git merge-base docs

User · Answer

To do this without rewriting history  i e  if you ve already pushed the commits    git checkout master git revert  lt commitID s  gt  git checkout -b new-branch git cherry-pick  lt commitID s  gt    Both branches can then be pushed without force

User · Answer

How can I go from this  A - B - C - D - E                                    master   to this   A - B - C - D - E                        master      newbranch   With two commands   git branch -m master newbranch   giving  A - B - C - D - E                                    newbranch   and    git branch master B   giving  A - B - C - D - E                       master      newbranch

User · Answer

Had just this situation   Branch one  A B C D E F     J   L M                             Merge  Branch two              G I   K     N   I performed   git branch newbranch  git reset --hard HEAD 8  git checkout newbranch   I expected that commit I would be the HEAD  but commit L is it now     To be sure to land on the right spot in the history its easier to work with the hash of the commit  git branch newbranch  git reset --hard           git checkout newbranch

User · Answer

Yet another way to do this  using just 2 commands  Also keeps your current working tree intact   git checkout -b newbranch   switch to a new branch git branch -f master HEAD 3   make master point to some older commit   Old version - before I learned about git branch -f  git checkout -b newbranch   switch to a new branch git push    HEAD 3 master   make master point to some older commit    Being able to push to   is a nice trick to know

[git] Move the most recent commit(s) to a new branch with Git

Much simpler solution using git stash

When to use this?

What this does, by line number

What this doesn't do

Goals

Examples related to git

Examples related to git-branch

Examples related to branching-and-merging