How can I email someone a git repository?

Question

I have tried:

git archive HEAD --format=zip > archive.zip

:and then I email archive.zip and at the other end they unzip archive.zip into a folder. But when they try any git commands they find out that this does not produce a valid git repository

For others who find this: the reason git archive isn't right for the job is that it only packages up the work tree. It's for doing things like making a tarball of all your source, for distribution. — Cascabel, Mar 30 '10 at 14:52

score 124 · Accepted Answer · edited May 21 '21 at 11:20

124

You could use git bundle and email one single file

See "backing up project which uses git"

A git bundle is just one file which can be very easily created and again imported as it can be treated like another remote.

Once received, you can clone it or fetch from that file.

As mentioned in "Backup of github repo", you will probably want for the first email to make your bundle with all branches:

$ git bundle create /tmp/foo-all --all

As Andreas mentions in the comments, Scott Chacon recently (March 2010) wrote a "cute" article on this topic in the ProGit blog:

Git's Little Bundle of Joy

edited May 21 '21 at 11:20

Daniel Moura

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answered Mar 30 '10 at 14:03

VonC

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Thanks. I read this but it wasn't clear if all my history and branches are saved. Also does it allow me to merge both repositories at a later date? – yazz.com Mar 30 '10 at 14:07
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@Zubair: yes, all the history is saved, contrary to `git archive`! – VonC Mar 30 '10 at 14:10
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Thanks. I figured it out: git init, and then : git pull bundle.bdl master – yazz.com Mar 30 '10 at 14:26
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@Zubair: unbundle it? You can simply clone it to get back a normal git repo. Or pull it in an empty repo. Which is, I see now, what you did ;) – VonC Mar 30 '10 at 14:26
I was trying "git bundle unbundle bundle.bdl" which seemed the sensible thing to do. Anyway, it works now, thanks! :) – yazz.com Mar 30 '10 at 14:28
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This is a good overview of how to use the bundle command and what it does: http://progit.org/2010/03/10/bundles.html – Andreas Mar 30 '10 at 14:57
@Andreas alas, the link is dead :-( – BVengerov Jan 05 '17 at 09:35
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@BVengerov The link is now https://git-scm.com/blog/2010/03/10/bundles.html – VonC Jan 05 '17 at 09:38
That link is now dead, too. – rmeador Jun 03 '20 at 20:10
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@rmeador yes, it is now https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Bundling – VonC Jun 03 '20 at 21:15

Manu Manjunath · Answer 2 · 2021-03-01T05:21:16.217

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As previous answer said, git bundle is the way.

If you want to create a bundle from using only one branch (I prefer bundling only main) and sending over e-mail, you can do something as below:

git bundle create ~/mygitbackup.bundle main

Above will create a git bundle file in your home directory.

edited Mar 01 '21 at 05:21

answered Nov 20 '13 at 11:35

Manu Manjunath

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How can I email someone a git repository?

2 Answers2

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