How do I check out a remote Git branch?
With One Remote
Jakub's answer actually improves on this. With Git versions ≥ 1.6.6, with only one remote, you can do:
git fetch
git checkout test
As user masukomi points out in a comment, git checkout test
will NOT work in modern git if you have multiple remotes. In this case use
git checkout -b test <name of remote>/test
or the shorthand
git checkout -t <name of remote>/test
With >1 Remotes
Before you can start working locally on a remote branch, you need to fetch it as called out in answers below.
To fetch a branch, you simply need to:
git fetch origin
This will fetch all of the remote branches for you. You can see the branches available for checkout with:
git branch -v -a
With the remote branches in hand, you now need to check out the branch you are interested in, giving you a local working copy:
git checkout -b test origin/test
Sidenote: With modern Git (>= 1.6.6), you are able to use just
git checkout test
(note that it is 'test' not 'origin/test') to perform magical DWIM-mery and create local branch 'test' for you, for which upstream would be remote-tracking branch 'origin/test'.
The * (no branch)
in git branch
output means that you are on unnamed branch, in so called "detached HEAD" state (HEAD points directly to commit, and is not symbolic reference to some local branch). If you made some commits on this unnamed branch, you can always create local branch off current commit:
git checkout -b test HEAD
** EDIT (by editor not author) **
I found a comment buried below which seems to modernize this answer:
@Dennis:
git checkout <non-branch>
, for examplegit checkout origin/test
results in detached HEAD / unnamed branch, whilegit checkout test
orgit checkout -b test origin/test
results in local branchtest
(with remote-tracking branchorigin/test
as upstream) – Jakub Narębski Jan 9 '14 at 8:17
emphasis on git checkout origin/test
In this case, you probably want to create a local test
branch which is tracking the remote test
branch:
$ git branch test origin/test
In earlier versions of git
, you needed an explicit --track
option, but that is the default now when you are branching off a remote branch.