# git-checkout

## 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 --**_< path>_... 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 _< path>_....
    
           **-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.
    
           **-U** _< n>_, **--unified=**_< n>_
               Generate diffs with _< n>_ lines of context. Defaults to
               **diff.context** or 3 if the config option is unset.
    
           **--inter-hunk-context=**_< n>_
               Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified
               _< number>_ of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each
               other. Defaults to **diff.interHunkContext** or 0 if the config
               option is unset.
    
           **--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 _< rev-a>_**...**_< rev-b>_ as a shortcut
               for the merge base of _< rev-a>_ and _< rev-b>_ if there is exactly
               one merge base. You can leave out at most one of _< rev-a>_ and
               _< rev-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 _< rev-a>_**...**_< rev-b>_ as a shortcut
               for the merge base of _< rev-a>_ and _< rev-b>_ if there is exactly
               one merge base. You can leave out at most one of _< rev-a>_ and
               _< rev-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 _< rev-a>_**...**_< rev-b>_ as a shortcut
               for the merge base of _< rev-a>_ and _< rev-b>_ if there is exactly
               one merge base. You can leave out at most one of _< rev-a>_ and
               _< rev-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.
    


## GIT



           Part of the git(1) suite
    


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