Git undo local branch delete

Question

I just deleted the wrong branch with some experimental changes I need with git branch -D branchName.

How do I recover the branch?

Glad to know I'm not the only lame-o who did this (and forgot to regularly push to remote a copy) — Ray, Aug 24 '17 at 11:48

score 869 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 13 '15 at 08:40

869

You can use git reflog to find the SHA1 of the last commit of the branch. From that point, you can recreate a branch using

git branch branchName <sha1>

Edit: As @seagullJS says, the branch -D command tells you the sha1, so if you haven't closed the terminal yet it becomes real easy. For example this deletes and then immediately restores a branch named master2:

user@MY-PC /C/MyRepo (master)
$ git branch -D master2
Deleted branch master2 (was 130d7ba).    <-- This is the SHA1 we need to restore it!

user@MY-PC /C/MyRepo (master)
$ git branch master2 130d7ba

edited Mar 13 '15 at 08:40

sashoalm

69,127
105
396
720

answered Oct 26 '10 at 16:57

bobDevil

25,598
3
29
29

82

Git tells you what the SHA1 was when the branch is deleted, so if you just delete it it might just be a few lines up in the command line. – seagullJS Dec 13 '12 at 01:04
1

if this branch exists on the server, alternatively, you can use `git branch branchName origin/branchName` – Florian Castellane Sep 22 '17 at 13:13
in addition i ended up using git cherry-pick to move the commit to branch – Akin Okegbile May 07 '18 at 20:28

score 81 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 10:31

81

If you know the last SHA1 of the branch, you can try

git branch branchName <SHA1>

You can find the SHA1 using git reflog, described in the solution --defect link--.

edited Dec 02 '20 at 10:31

coding Bott

4,187
1
26
43

answered Oct 26 '10 at 16:55

Chetan

44,172
28
104
142

You just saved a couple of days of my work, thanks!!! – shift66 May 24 '22 at 09:51

score 44 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 14 '14 at 16:07

44

If you haven't push the deletion yet, you can simply do :

$ git checkout deletedBranchName

answered Jan 14 '14 at 16:07

amichaud

1,483
11
9

This answer makes Git Extensions shut up about "the branch you are trying to push seems to be a new branch for this remote." Thanks a lot. – Omer Tuchfeld Dec 21 '14 at 08:56

developerick · Answer 4 · 2017-12-15T05:32:27.937

43

If you just deleted the branch, you will see something like this in your terminal:

Deleted branch branch_name(was e562d13)

where e562d13 is a unique ID (a.k.a. the "SHA" or "hash"), with this you can restore the deleted branch.

To restore the branch, use:

git checkout -b <branch_name> <sha>

for example:

git checkout -b branch_name e562d13

edited Dec 15 '17 at 05:32

answered Aug 19 '16 at 11:45

developerick

3,164
4
35
43

greencheese · Answer 5 · 2020-04-13T14:36:02.773

26

Follow these Steps:

1: Enter:

git reflog show

This will display all the Commit history, you need to select the sha-1 that has the last commit that you want to get back

2: create a branch name with the Sha-1 ID you selected eg: 8c87714

git branch your-branch-name 8c87714

edited Apr 13 '20 at 14:36

answered Mar 11 '20 at 18:36

greencheese

704
10
25

4

Thank you very much. This worked for me. My 2 months of work was lost. This solution helped recover those files. – Amit Jan 20 '21 at 13:00

score 9 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 26 '10 at 16:57

9

First: back up your entire directory, including the .git directory.

Second: You can use git fsck --lost-found to obtain the ID of the lost commits.

Third: rebase or merge onto the lost commit.

Fourth: Always think twice before using -D or --force with git :)

You could also read this good discussion of how to recover from this kind of error.

EDIT: By the way, don't run git gc (or allow it to run by itself - i.e. don't run git fetch or anything similar) or you may lose your commits for ever.

answered Oct 26 '10 at 16:57

Cameron Skinner

48,389
2
64
82

yeah, that is why we use git, to avoid having to carry all that around. Every action you have committed is still available to you. – mateor May 03 '13 at 05:26
You save me 30h work, thanks! Accidentally delete a branch with only local commits, which I made a week ago and don't push. – Sergey Sep 03 '21 at 06:51
This works great! I was also able to visualize lost commits in a tree: `git fsck --lost-found | awk '/commit/{print $3}' | xargs gitk &` – Melebius Oct 26 '21 at 12:07

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 07 '17 at 16:00

4

Thanks, this worked.

git branch new_branch_name sha1

git checkout new_branch_name

//can see my old checked in files in my old branch

answered Feb 07 '17 at 16:00

Rajeev Jayaswal

1,193
1
14
21

1

This is [not a forum](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/92107/217657), please upvote useful answers instead of reposting them. – Melebius Oct 26 '21 at 12:09

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 25 '21 at 15:04

If you deleted a branch via Source Tree, you could easily find the SHA1 of the deleted branch by going to View -> Show Command History.

It should have the next format:

Deleting branch ...
...
Deleted branch %NAME% (was %SHA1%)
...

Then just follow the original answer.

git branch branchName <sha1>

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 15 '20 at 07:54

2

This worked for me:

git fsck --full --no-reflogs --unreachable --lost-found
git show d6e883ff45be514397dcb641c5a914f40b938c86
git branch helpme 15e521b0f716269718bb4e4edc81442a6c11c139

answered Apr 15 '20 at 07:54

Alej priv

41
6

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 09 '21 at 16:27

0

if you deleted a branch using GUI of a Jetbrains IDE(Goland, phpstorm etc)

go to

git windows(left-down corner of IDE) -> console tab -> now you can see log of executed commands by IDE and find the branch name and SHA1 from this log

answered Dec 09 '21 at 16:27

Amin Shojaei

3,796
2
27
38

Git undo local branch delete

10 Answers10

Linked

Related