Resolve using "theirs" vs "mine" - what is the difference?
Asked by thomthom:

I'm confused by the working when you resolve conflicts. What does "theirs" refer to and what does "mine" refer to?

Which version is kept by the two options?


Answers:
author: HenriqueA
body: Hi Thomas,  

I believe that you're talking about Git, right?  

When you have conflict between your file and the file that you're merging, you have two choices:  
"**Mine** " - Your file will be used to solve the conflicts  
"**Theirs** " - The Target file will be used to solve the conflicts.  

It depends on what you need to use to solve the file conflict.   

Kind Regards,  
Henrique Lechner

comments: author: thomthom
body: When I merge a branch into the current one, is "Mine" the current branch and "Theirs" the branch I'm merging into the current?


author: HenriqueA
body: Actually the opposite:  
**Mine** = The file that I'm merging into the current  
**Theirs** = The current


author: thomthom
body: Oh... then it was good I asked first. Because that wasn't obvious to me. I wasn't able to find any references that described this either.

Is this the wording normally used for such operation? Is there perhaps more clearer wording? Or am I the only one to find this confusing?


author: mehrad_mahmoudian
body: I'm having hard time digesting this. In my opinion the [initial answer](https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/331999/answers/4055864) says the exact opposite of the [comment](https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/331999/answers/4055864/comments/4055866).

Let's say we have two branches branch1 and branch2. Assume we are in branch2 and we merge the last commit of branch1 into the branch2 and we get conflicts. Now:

1. Which branch is "Mine" and which one is "Theirs"??
2. If I want to accept everything from branch1, which button should I press??


author: Tim Carr
body: Hi I'd just like to point out that Henrique's answer is incorrect for SourceTree 2.5.2 (current as of June 2017) per my understanding and experience (perhaps I misunderstood). This is a git repo.

Here is the state before merge: branch *v4* has all the new stuff, branch *develop* is behind. I'm merging v4 into develop.

Current branch: *develop*   
Merge**v4 -\> Develop**

Mine == Use the file as it is in **Develop** , ie. the **same branch I am in**

Theirs == Use the file as it is in **v4** , ie. the **branch I am not in**

This makes sense to me (it's what I expected), but appears to be the opposite of Henrique's answer.


author: divonelnc
body: I just gave it a shot and at least when applying stash it seems to work the way you describe it:

**mine:** uses the file in the currently active branch

**theirs:** uses the file from the stash


author: Jim Renkel
body: "mine" and "theirs" is horribly confusing, and seems to vary depending on whether you're doing a merge or a rebase.

So confusing that I always have to use an external merge tool to get it right.

Please change this to use the branch names or commit IDs instead.

comments: author: Richard Lalancette
body: YES please! +100


author: Manjunath K
body: We beg you to do this!!.. Messed and confused many times. Plzzz..


author: Murray Smart
body: Or use a less vague pair of words like VS Code have done:  
Current VS Incoming


author: Peter Gazdik
body: As of 3.2.6 when you pick "mine" or "theirs" a confirmation windows pops up explaining which is which as well as saying which commitID it denotes.


author: Andy lec58
body: With something so important as source control, why does the tool have to hamper you in this way. +1000 for using branch names.


author: Mahesh Nallabothula
body: Resolve using "**theirs** " should result in **my local changes discarded** for that file, and the remote version taking over. Resolve using "**mine** " should mean I choose to**keep my local version instead of the remote version**. Instead, the opposite happens. The functions are switched.


author: mawh
body: Can I +1 this? Not only does the UI use "mine" and "theirs", but when merging using a diff tool it creates temp files names **myfile.LOCAL.txt** and **myfile.REMOTE.txt**.. so mine is local, and theirs is remote?

Why not just have "resolve using branchname1" and have the file called *myfile.branchname1.txt* in the resolve tool, and "resolve using branchname2" and have the file called *myfile.branchname2.txt* in the resolve tool?

comments: author: Andy lec58
body: I can only guess that they are trying to get people to give up on sourcetree so they can scrap it.


author: Ben Kennedy
body: This problem has been well-known---yet ignored---for many years: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/SRCTREE-1579>

comments: author: Richard Lalancette
body: This is still not resolved ahaha.  

Ok, here is a work around source tree.

- Open the panel that shows conflicting files in source tree.

- Open visual studio code  
- Drag the conflicting file from source tree into VSCode.  
- Resolve conflict  
- Back in source tree and stage the file.


author: JoshuaWBL
body: \^ THIS!!!


author: Richard Lalancette
body: This was resolved elegantly in vscode!

comments: author: Murray Smart
body: just wish VS Code had the option to resolve all conflicts in a file using Current Changes, Incoming Changes or Both Changes


author: James Towers
body: It does, see here: <https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/42387#issuecomment-361491076>


author: ivanzhigalkin
body: Thanks, it's help


author: stoune
body: 6 years is not enough to solve obvious UX disaster.

No the dialog it bad option to solve the problem. It is distractive and slowing down.

1. Git uses different terminology, you have to use the same , there is ours and theirs.

2. You know what you are merging. Show in context menu what is mine and what is theirs. Show branch name(if you can't guess it then commit).


author: Joel Rockwell
body: I'm using Sourcetree for managing commits, branches, merging, etc. I was merging branch **A** into my currently selected branch **B** /working copy and I wanted to keep the changes from branch **A** . What I experienced was **Mine** = ++Current Branch++ (**B** ) and **Theirs** = ++Branch being merged in++ (**A** ). So my solution was to Resolve using **Theirs**.

I was able to verify this when I got a prompt to confirm the commit I wanted to use. In this prompt it provided a string of numbers and letters. When I selected **Mine** i got a value that matched the latest commit for **B** and when I selected **Theirs** I got a value that matched the latest commit from **A**.

comments: author: cbertelson
body: Thanks Joel. I definitely like this referential method better than the relativistic methods.


author: Jek-fdrv
body: I hope it will help some one =)

This is Merge Conflict. Be careful, rebase work in opposite way.

![210320021745(1).png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/135231i3F7BFE1EC3C661AB/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "210320021745(1).png")


author: Crystal_O_Mara
body: "Mine" and "Yours" flips meaning whether if you are rebasing or pulling ... so yes it is confusing.

**Which one is always "HEAD"?**

**That's what I would like to know**


Tags: conflict

git

resolve