How to modify existing, unpushed commit messages?

Answer 1

1. If you only want to modify your last commit message, then do:

   git commit --amend
   

That will drop you into your text editor and let you change the last commit message.

2. If you want to change the last three commit messages, or any of the commit messages up to that point, supply HEAD~3 to the git rebase -i command:

   git rebase -i HEAD~3
   

Answer 2

Update your last wrong commit message with the new commit message in one line:

git commit --amend -m "your new commit message"

Or, try Git reset like below:

# You can reset your head to n number of commit
# NOT a good idea for changing last commit message,
# but you can get an idea to split commit into multiple commits
git reset --soft HEAD^

# It will reset you last commit. Now, you
# can re-commit it with new commit message.

Using reset to split commits into smaller commits

git reset can help you to break one commit into multiple commits too:

# Reset your head. I am resetting to last commits:
git reset --soft HEAD^
# (You can reset multiple commit by doing HEAD~2(no. of commits)

# Now, reset your head for splitting it to multiple commits
git reset HEAD

# Add and commit your files separately to make multiple commits: e.g
git add app/
git commit -m "add all files in app directory"

git add config/
git commit -m "add all files in config directory"

Here you have successfully broken your last commit into two commits.

Answer 3

I use the Git GUI as much as I can, and that gives you the option to amend the last commit:

Also, git rebase -i origin/masteris a nice mantra that will always present you with the commits you have done on top of master, and give you the option to amend, delete, reorder or squash. No need to get hold of that hash first.

Answer 4

If you only want to change your last message you should use the --only flag or its shortcut -o with commit --amend:

git commit --amend -o -m "New commit message"

This ensures that you don't accidentally enhance your commit with staged stuff. Of course it's best to have a proper $EDITOR configuration. Then you can leave the -m option out, and Git will pre-fill the commit message with the old one. In this way it can be easily edited.

Answer 5

I have added the aliases reci and recm for recommit (amend) it. Now I can do it with git recm or git recm -m:

$ vim ~/.gitconfig

[alias]

    ......
    cm = commit
    reci = commit --amend
    recm = commit --amend
    ......

Answer 6

To amend the previous commit, make the changes you want and stage those changes, and then run

git commit --amend

This will open a file in your text editor representing your new commit message. It starts out populated with the text from your old commit message. Change the commit message as you want, then save the file and quit your editor to finish.

To amend the previous commit and keep the same log message, run

git commit --amend -C HEAD

To fix the previous commit by removing it entirely, run

git reset --hard HEAD^

If you want to edit more than one commit message, run

git rebase -i HEAD~commit_count

(Replace commit_count with number of commits that you want to edit.) This command launches your editor. Mark the first commit (the one that you want to change) as “edit” instead of “pick”, then save and exit your editor. Make the change you want to commit and then run

git commit --amend
git rebase --continue

Note: You can also "Make the change you want" from the editor opened by git commit --amend