GIT-CHECKOUT(1) Git Manual GIT-CHECKOUT(1)
NAME
git-checkout - Switch branches or restore working tree files
SYNOPSIS
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [<branch>]
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] --detach [<branch>]
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [--detach] <commit>
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|-B|--orphan] <new-branch>] [<start-point>]
git checkout [-f] <tree-ish> [--] <pathspec>...
git checkout [-f] <tree-ish> --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [--] <pathspec>...
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
DESCRIPTION
Updates files in the working tree to match the version in the index or
the specified tree. If no pathspec was given, git checkout will also
update HEAD to set the specified branch as the current branch.
git checkout [<branch>]
To prepare for working on <branch>, switch to it by updating the
index and the files in the working tree, and by pointing HEAD at the
branch. Local modifications to the files in the working tree are
kept, so that they can be committed to the <branch>.
If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in
exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name and
--no-guess is not specified, treat as equivalent to
$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>
You could omit <branch>, in which case the command degenerates to
"check out the current branch", which is a glorified no-op with
rather expensive side-effects to show only the tracking information,
if it exists, for the current branch.
git checkout -b|-B <new-branch> [<start-point>]
Specifying -b causes a new branch to be created as if git-branch(1)
were called and then checked out. In this case you can use the
--track or --no-track options, which will be passed to git branch.
As a convenience, --track without -b implies branch creation; see
the description of --track below.
If -B is given, <new-branch> is created if it doesn’t exist;
otherwise, it is reset. This is the transactional equivalent of
$ git branch -f <branch> [<start-point>]
$ git checkout <branch>
that is to say, the branch is not reset/created unless "git
checkout" is successful (e.g., when the branch is in use in another
worktree, not just the current branch stays the same, but the branch
is not reset to the start-point, either).
git checkout --detach [<branch>], git checkout [--detach] <commit>
Prepare to work on top of <commit>, by detaching HEAD at it (see
"DETACHED HEAD" section), and updating the index and the files in
the working tree. Local modifications to the files in the working
tree are kept, so that the resulting working tree will be the state
recorded in the commit plus the local modifications.
When the <commit> argument is a branch name, the --detach option can
be used to detach HEAD at the tip of the branch (git checkout
<branch> would check out that branch without detaching HEAD).
Omitting <branch> detaches HEAD at the tip of the current branch.
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>]
[--] <pathspec>..., git checkout
[-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>]
--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
Overwrite the contents of the files that match the pathspec. When
the <tree-ish> (most often a commit) is not given, overwrite working
tree with the contents in the index. When the <tree-ish> is given,
overwrite both the index and the working tree with the contents at
the <tree-ish>.
The index may contain unmerged entries because of a previous failed
merge. By default, if you try to check out such an entry from the
index, the checkout operation will fail and nothing will be checked
out. Using -f will ignore these unmerged entries. The contents from
a specific side of the merge can be checked out of the index by
using --ours or --theirs. With -m, changes made to the working tree
file can be discarded to re-create the original conflicted merge
result.
git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
This is similar to the previous mode, but lets you use the
interactive interface to show the "diff" output and choose which
hunks to use in the result. See below for the description of --patch
option.
OPTIONS
-q, --quiet
Quiet, suppress feedback messages.
--progress, --no-progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified. This
flag enables progress reporting even if not attached to a terminal,
regardless of --quiet.
-f, --force
When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the working
tree differs from HEAD, and even if there are untracked files in the
way. This is used to throw away local changes and any untracked
files or directories that are in the way.
When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged
entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.
--ours, --theirs
When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2 (ours) or
#3 (theirs) for unmerged paths.
Note that during git rebase and git pull --rebase, ours and theirs
may appear swapped; --ours gives the version from the branch the
changes are rebased onto, while --theirs gives the version from the
branch that holds your work that is being rebased.
This is because rebase is used in a workflow that treats the history
at the remote as the shared canonical one, and treats the work done
on the branch you are rebasing as the third-party work to be
integrated, and you are temporarily assuming the role of the keeper
of the canonical history during the rebase. As the keeper of the
canonical history, you need to view the history from the remote as
ours (i.e. "our shared canonical history"), while what you did on
your side branch as theirs (i.e. "one contributor’s work on top of
it").
-b <new-branch>
Create a new branch named <new-branch>, start it at <start-point>,
and check the resulting branch out; see git-branch(1) for details.
-B <new-branch>
Creates the branch <new-branch>, start it at <start-point>; if it
already exists, then reset it to <start-point>. And then check the
resulting branch out. This is equivalent to running "git branch"
with "-f" followed by "git checkout" of that branch; see git-
branch(1) for details.
-t, --track[=(direct|inherit)]
When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration. See
"--track" in git-branch(1) for details.
If no -b option is given, the name of the new branch will be derived
from the remote-tracking branch, by looking at the local part of the
refspec configured for the corresponding remote, and then stripping
the initial part up to the "*". This would tell us to use hack as
the local branch when branching off of origin/hack (or
remotes/origin/hack, or even refs/remotes/origin/hack). If the given
name has no slash, or the above guessing results in an empty name,
the guessing is aborted. You can explicitly give a name with -b in
such a case.
--no-track
Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the
branch.autoSetupMerge configuration variable is true.
--guess, --no-guess
If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in
exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name, treat as
equivalent to
$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>
If the branch exists in multiple remotes and one of them is named by
the checkout.defaultRemote configuration variable, we’ll use that
one for the purposes of disambiguation, even if the <branch> isn’t
unique across all remotes. Set it to e.g.
checkout.defaultRemote=origin to always checkout remote branches
from there if <branch> is ambiguous but exists on the origin remote.
See also checkout.defaultRemote in git-config(1).
--guess is the default behavior. Use --no-guess to disable it.
The default behavior can be set via the checkout.guess configuration
variable.
-l
Create the new branch’s reflog; see git-branch(1) for details.
-d, --detach
Rather than checking out a branch to work on it, check out a commit
for inspection and discardable experiments. This is the default
behavior of git checkout <commit> when <commit> is not a branch
name. See the "DETACHED HEAD" section below for details.
--orphan <new-branch>
Create a new unborn branch, named <new-branch>, started from
<start-point> and switch to it. The first commit made on this new
branch will have no parents and it will be the root of a new history
totally disconnected from all the other branches and commits.
The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had previously
run git checkout <start-point>. This allows you to start a new
history that records a set of paths similar to <start-point> by
easily running git commit -a to make the root commit.
This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit
without exposing its full history. You might want to do this to
publish an open source branch of a project whose current tree is
"clean", but whose full history contains proprietary or otherwise
encumbered bits of code.
If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of
paths that is totally different from the one of <start-point>, then
you should clear the index and the working tree right after creating
the orphan branch by running git rm -rf . from the top level of the
working tree. Afterwards you will be ready to prepare your new
files, repopulating the working tree, by copying them from
elsewhere, extracting a tarball, etc.
--ignore-skip-worktree-bits
In sparse checkout mode, git checkout -- <paths> would update only
entries matched by <paths> and sparse patterns in
$GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout. This option ignores the sparse
patterns and adds back any files in <paths>.
-m, --merge
When switching branches, if you have local modifications to one or
more files that are different between the current branch and the
branch to which you are switching, the command refuses to switch
branches in order to preserve your modifications in context.
However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current
branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch is done, and
you will be on the new branch.
When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting
paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts and
mark the resolved paths with git add (or git rm if the merge should
result in deletion of the path).
When checking out paths from the index, this option lets you
recreate the conflicted merge in the specified paths. This option
cannot be used when checking out paths from a tree-ish.
When switching branches with --merge, staged changes may be lost.
--conflict=<style>
The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the
conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the merge.conflictStyle
configuration variable. Possible values are "merge" (default),
"diff3", and "zdiff3".
-p, --patch
Interactively select hunks in the difference between the <tree-ish>
(or the index, if unspecified) and the working tree. The chosen
hunks are then applied in reverse to the working tree (and if a
<tree-ish> was specified, the index).
This means that you can use git checkout -p to selectively discard
edits from your current working tree. See the “Interactive Mode”
section of git-add(1) to learn how to operate the --patch mode.
Note that this option uses the no overlay mode by default (see also
--overlay), and currently doesn’t support overlay mode.
--ignore-other-worktrees
git checkout refuses when the wanted branch is already checked out
or otherwise in use by another worktree. This option makes it check
the branch out anyway. In other words, the branch can be in use by
more than one worktree.
--overwrite-ignore, --no-overwrite-ignore
Silently overwrite ignored files when switching branches. This is
the default behavior. Use --no-overwrite-ignore to abort the
operation when the new branch contains ignored files.
--recurse-submodules, --no-recurse-submodules
Using --recurse-submodules will update the content of all active
submodules according to the commit recorded in the superproject. If
local modifications in a submodule would be overwritten the checkout
will fail unless -f is used. If nothing (or --no-recurse-submodules)
is used, submodules working trees will not be updated. Just like
git-submodule(1), this will detach HEAD of the submodule.
--overlay, --no-overlay
In the default overlay mode, git checkout never removes files from
the index or the working tree. When specifying --no-overlay, files
that appear in the index and working tree, but not in <tree-ish> are
removed, to make them match <tree-ish> exactly.
--pathspec-from-file=<file>
Pathspec is passed in <file> instead of commandline args. If <file>
is exactly - then standard input is used. Pathspec elements are
separated by LF or CR/LF. Pathspec elements can be quoted as
explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
config(1)). See also --pathspec-file-nul and global
--literal-pathspecs.
--pathspec-file-nul
Only meaningful with --pathspec-from-file. Pathspec elements are
separated with NUL character and all other characters are taken
literally (including newlines and quotes).
<branch>
Branch to checkout; if it refers to a branch (i.e., a name that,
when prepended with "refs/heads/", is a valid ref), then that branch
is checked out. Otherwise, if it refers to a valid commit, your HEAD
becomes "detached" and you are no longer on any branch (see below
for details).
You can use the @{-N} syntax to refer to the N-th last branch/commit
checked out using "git checkout" operation. You may also specify -
which is synonymous to @{-1}.
As a special case, you may use A...B as a shortcut for the merge
base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
<new-branch>
Name for the new branch.
<start-point>
The name of a commit at which to start the new branch; see git-
branch(1) for details. Defaults to HEAD.
As a special case, you may use "A...B" as a shortcut for the merge
base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
<tree-ish>
Tree to checkout from (when paths are given). If not specified, the
index will be used.
As a special case, you may use "A...B" as a shortcut for the merge
base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
--
Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
<pathspec>...
Limits the paths affected by the operation.
For more details, see the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
DETACHED HEAD
HEAD normally refers to a named branch (e.g. master). Meanwhile, each
branch refers to a specific commit. Let’s look at a repo with three
commits, one of them tagged, and with branch master checked out:
HEAD (refers to branch 'master')
|
v
a---b---c branch 'master' (refers to commit 'c')
^
|
tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
When a commit is created in this state, the branch is updated to refer
to the new commit. Specifically, git commit creates a new commit d,
whose parent is commit c, and then updates branch master to refer to new
commit d. HEAD still refers to branch master and so indirectly now
refers to commit d:
$ edit; git add; git commit
HEAD (refers to branch 'master')
|
v
a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
^
|
tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
It is sometimes useful to be able to checkout a commit that is not at
the tip of any named branch, or even to create a new commit that is not
referenced by a named branch. Let’s look at what happens when we
checkout commit b (here we show two ways this may be done):
$ git checkout v2.0 # or
$ git checkout master^^
HEAD (refers to commit 'b')
|
v
a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
^
|
tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
Notice that regardless of which checkout command we use, HEAD now refers
directly to commit b. This is known as being in detached HEAD state. It
means simply that HEAD refers to a specific commit, as opposed to
referring to a named branch. Let’s see what happens when we create a
commit:
$ edit; git add; git commit
HEAD (refers to commit 'e')
|
v
e
/
a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
^
|
tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
There is now a new commit e, but it is referenced only by HEAD. We can
of course add yet another commit in this state:
$ edit; git add; git commit
HEAD (refers to commit 'f')
|
v
e---f
/
a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
^
|
tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
In fact, we can perform all the normal Git operations. But, let’s look
at what happens when we then checkout master:
$ git checkout master
HEAD (refers to branch 'master')
e---f |
/ v
a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
^
|
tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
It is important to realize that at this point nothing refers to commit
f. Eventually commit f (and by extension commit e) will be deleted by
the routine Git garbage collection process, unless we create a reference
before that happens. If we have not yet moved away from commit f, any of
these will create a reference to it:
$ git checkout -b foo # or "git switch -c foo" (1)
$ git branch foo (2)
$ git tag foo (3)
1. creates a new branch foo, which refers to commit f, and
then updates HEAD to refer to branch foo. In other words,
we’ll no longer be in detached HEAD state after this
command.
2. similarly creates a new branch foo, which refers to commit
f, but leaves HEAD detached.
3. creates a new tag foo, which refers to commit f, leaving
HEAD detached.
If we have moved away from commit f, then we must first recover its
object name (typically by using git reflog), and then we can create a
reference to it. For example, to see the last two commits to which HEAD
referred, we can use either of these commands:
$ git reflog -2 HEAD # or
$ git log -g -2 HEAD
ARGUMENT DISAMBIGUATION
When there is only one argument given and it is not -- (e.g. git
checkout abc), and when the argument is both a valid <tree-ish> (e.g. a
branch abc exists) and a valid <pathspec> (e.g. a file or a directory
whose name is "abc" exists), Git would usually ask you to disambiguate.
Because checking out a branch is so common an operation, however, git
checkout abc takes "abc" as a <tree-ish> in such a situation. Use git
checkout -- <pathspec> if you want to checkout these paths out of the
index.
EXAMPLES
1. Paths
The following sequence checks out the master branch, reverts the
Makefile to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by mistake, and gets it
back from the index.
$ git checkout master (1)
$ git checkout master~2 Makefile (2)
$ rm -f hello.c
$ git checkout hello.c (3)
1. switch branch
2. take a file out of another commit
3. restore hello.c from the index
If you want to check out all C source files out of the index, you can
say
$ git checkout -- '*.c'
Note the quotes around *.c. The file hello.c will also be checked out,
even though it is no longer in the working tree, because the file
globbing is used to match entries in the index (not in the working tree
by the shell).
If you have an unfortunate branch that is named hello.c, this step would
be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. You should
instead write:
$ git checkout -- hello.c
2. Merge
After working in the wrong branch, switching to the correct branch would
be done using:
$ git checkout mytopic
However, your "wrong" branch and correct mytopic branch may differ in
files that you have modified locally, in which case the above checkout
would fail like this:
$ git checkout mytopic
error: You have local changes to 'frotz'; not switching branches.
You can give the -m flag to the command, which would try a three-way
merge:
$ git checkout -m mytopic
Auto-merging frotz
After this three-way merge, the local modifications are not registered
in your index file, so git diff would show you what changes you made
since the tip of the new branch.
3. Merge conflict
When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with the -m
option, you would see something like this:
$ git checkout -m mytopic
Auto-merging frotz
ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz
fatal: merge program failed
At this point, git diff shows the changes cleanly merged as in the
previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted files. Edit
and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with git add as usual:
$ edit frotz
$ git add frotz
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what’s found
there:
checkout.defaultRemote
When you run git checkout <something> or git switch <something> and
only have one remote, it may implicitly fall back on checking out
and tracking e.g. origin/<something>. This stops working as soon as
you have more than one remote with a <something> reference. This
setting allows for setting the name of a preferred remote that
should always win when it comes to disambiguation. The typical
use-case is to set this to origin.
Currently this is used by git-switch(1) and git-checkout(1) when git
checkout <something> or git switch <something> will checkout the
<something> branch on another remote, and by git-worktree(1) when
git worktree add refers to a remote branch. This setting might be
used for other checkout-like commands or functionality in the
future.
checkout.guess
Provides the default value for the --guess or --no-guess option in
git checkout and git switch. See git-switch(1) and git-checkout(1).
checkout.workers
The number of parallel workers to use when updating the working
tree. The default is one, i.e. sequential execution. If set to a
value less than one, Git will use as many workers as the number of
logical cores available. This setting and
checkout.thresholdForParallelism affect all commands that perform
checkout. E.g. checkout, clone, reset, sparse-checkout, etc.
Note: Parallel checkout usually delivers better performance for
repositories located on SSDs or over NFS. For repositories on
spinning disks and/or machines with a small number of cores, the
default sequential checkout often performs better. The size and
compression level of a repository might also influence how well the
parallel version performs.
checkout.thresholdForParallelism
When running parallel checkout with a small number of files, the
cost of subprocess spawning and inter-process communication might
outweigh the parallelization gains. This setting allows you to
define the minimum number of files for which parallel checkout
should be attempted. The default is 100.
SEE ALSO
git-switch(1), git-restore(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.47.3 07/30/2025 GIT-CHECKOUT(1)
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