How do I check out a remote Git branch?

Question

Somebody pushed a branch called test with git push origin test to a shared repository. I can see the branch with git branch -r.

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Answer 1

If the branch is on something other than the origin remote I like to do the following:

$ git fetch
$ git checkout -b second/next upstream/next

This will checkout the next branch on the upstream remote in to a local branch called second/next. Which means if you already have a local branch named next it will not conflict.

$ git branch -a
* second/next
  remotes/origin/next
  remotes/upstream/next

Answer 2

git branch -r says the object name is invalid, because that branch name isn't in Git's local branch list. Update your local branch list from origin with:

git remote update

And then try checking out your remote branch again.

This worked for me.

I believe git fetch pulls in all remote branches, which is not what the original poster wanted.

Answer 3

Use:

git checkout -b <BRANCH-NAME> <REMOTE-NAME>/<BRANCH-NAME>

Other answers do not work with modern Git in my benign case. You might need to pull first if the remote branch is new, but I haven't checked that case.

Answer 4

I use the following command:

git checkout --track origin/other_remote_branch

Answer 5

Sidenote: With modern Git (>= 1.6.6), you are able to use just

git checkout test

(note that it is 'test' not 'origin/test') to perform magical DWIM-mery and create local branch 'test' for you, for which upstream would be remote-tracking branch 'origin/test'.

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The * (no branch) in git branch output means that you are on unnamed branch, in so called "detached HEAD" state (HEAD points directly to commit, and is not symbolic reference to some local branch). If you made some commits on this unnamed branch, you can always create local branch off current commit:

git checkout -b test HEAD

** EDIT (by editor not author) **

I found a comment buried below which seems to modernize this answer:

@Dennis: git checkout <non-branch>, for example git checkout origin/test results in detached HEAD / unnamed branch, while git checkout test or git checkout -b test origin/test results in local branch test (with remote-tracking branch origin/test as upstream) – Jakub Narębski Jan 9 '14 at 8:17

emphasis on git checkout origin/test

Answer 6

Simply run git checkout with the name of the remote branch. Git will automatically create a local branch that tracks the remote one:

git fetch
git checkout test

However, if that branch name is found in more than one remote, this won't work as Git doesn't know which to use. In that case you can use either:

git checkout --track origin/test

or

git checkout -b test origin/test

In 2.19, Git learned the checkout.defaultRemote configuration, which specifies a remote to default to when resolving such an ambiguity.