Git: “Not currently on any branch.” Is there an easy way to get back on a branch, while keeping the changes?

Question

So I\'ve done some work in the repository and when I\'m about to commit I realize that I\'m not currently on any branch.

This happens a lot when working with submodu

Answer 1

I know I told babay in 2012 that I thought it was unlikely that someone wouldn't realize that they weren't on a branch and commit. This just happened to me, so I guess I have to admit that I was wrong, but considering that it took until 2016 for this to happen to me, you could argue that it is in fact unlikely.

Anyway, creating a new branch is overkill in my opinion. All you have to do is:

git checkout some-branch
git merge commit-sha

If you didn't copy the commit-sha before checking out the other branch, you can easily find it by running:

git reflog

Answer 2

One way to end up in this situation is after doing a rebase from a remote branch. In this case, the new commits are pointed to by HEAD but master does not point to them -- it's pointing to wherever it was before you rebased the other branch.

You can make this commit your new master by doing:

git branch -f master HEAD
git checkout master

This forcibly updates master to point to HEAD (without putting you on master) then switches to master.

Answer 3

Leaving another way here

git branch newbranch
git checkout master 
git merge newbranch 

Answer 4

this helped me

git checkout -b newbranch
git checkout master
git merge newbranch
git branch -d newbranch

Answer 5

The following method may work:

git rebase HEAD master
git checkout master

This will rebase your current HEAD changes on top of the master. Then you can switch the branch.

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Alternative way is to checkout the branch first:

git checkout master

Then Git should display SHA1 of your detached commits, then you can cherry pick them, e.g.

git cherry-pick YOURSHA1

Or you can also merge the latest one:

git merge YOURSHA1

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To see all of your commits from different branches (to make sure you've them), run: git reflog.

Answer 6

If you have not committed:

git stash
git checkout some-branch
git stash pop

If you have committed and have not changed anything since:

git log --oneline -n1 # this will give you the SHA
git checkout some-branch
git merge ${commit-sha}

If you have committed and then done extra work:

git stash
git log --oneline -n1 # this will give you the SHA
git checkout some-branch
git merge ${commit-sha}
git stash pop