Question

How can I rename a local branch which has not yet been pushed to a remote repository?

Related:

• Rename master branch for both local and remote Git repositories
• How do I rename both a Git local and remote branch name?

Answer 1

To rename the current branch:

git branch -m <newname>

To rename a branch while pointed to any branch:

git branch -m <oldname> <newname>

-m is short for --move.

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To push the local branch and reset the upstream branch:

git push origin -u <newname>

To delete the remote branch:

git push origin --delete <oldname>

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To create a git rename alias:

git config --global alias.rename 'branch -m'

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On Windows or another case-insensitive filesystem, use -M if there are only capitalization changes in the name. Otherwise, Git will throw a "branch already exists" error.

git branch -M <newname>