Github: Import upstream branch into fork

1. Make sure you've pulled the new upstream branch into your local repo:

   • First, ensure your working tree is clean (commit/stash/revert any changes)
   • Then, git fetch upstream to retrieve the new upstream branch

2. Create and switch to a local version of the new upstream branch (newbranch):

   • git checkout -b newbranch upstream/newbranch

3. When you're ready to push the new branch to origin:

   • git push -u origin newbranch

The -u switch sets up tracking to the specified remote (in this example, origin)

I would use

git checkout -b <new_branch> upstream/<new_branch>

I had trouble with this too, and google took me here. The solutions didn't work however. My problem was that when i added my upstream, it set up my git config to only fetch master, rather than all branches. e.g. It looked like this

[remote "somebody"]
        url = [email protected]:somebodys/repo.git
        fetch = +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/upstream/master

Editing .git/config as follows fixed my problem

[remote "somebody"]
        url = [email protected]:somebodys/repo.git
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/upstream/*

The following steps worked well for me (assuming the upstream branch name is branch):

$ git fetch upstream
$ git checkout branch
$ git push origin