Github “fatal: remote origin already exists”

Question

I am trying to follow along Michael Hartl's Rails tutorial but I've run across an error.

I signed up on Github and issued a new SSH key and made a new repository. But when I enter the next line into the terminal I get the following error:

Parkers-MacBook-Pro:.ssh ppreyer$ git remote add origin git@github.com:ppreyer/first_app.git
fatal: remote origin already exists.

Just wondered if anybody else has run across this problem?

Answer 1

TL;DR you should just update the existing remote:

$ git remote set-url origin git@github.com:ppreyer/first_app.git

Long version:

As the error message indicates, there is already a remote configured with the same name. So you can either add the new remote with a different name or update the existing one if you don't need it:

To add a new remote, called for example github instead of origin (which obviously already exists in your system), do the following:

$ git remote add github git@github.com:ppreyer/first_app.git

Remember though, everywhere in the tutorial you see "origin" you should replace it with "github". For example $ git push origin master should now be $ git push github master.

However, if you want to see what that origin which already exists is, you can do a $ git remote -v. If you think this is there by some error, you can update it like so:

$ git remote set-url origin git@github.com:ppreyer/first_app.git

Answer 2

In Short,

git remote rm origin
git remote add origin git@github.com:username/myapp.git

Worked !

Cheers!

Answer 3

For those of you running into the ever so common error "fatal: remote origin already exists.", or when trying to remove origin and you get "error: could not remove config section remote.origin", what you need to do is to set the origin manually.

Window's POSH~Git for Windows PowerShell (and GitHub for Windows' app) has a problem with this.

I ran into this, like I do so often, again when setting up my octopress. So, here's how I got it working.

First, check your remotes:

C:\gd\code\octopress [source +2 ~3 -0 !]> git remote -v
octopress       https://github.com/imathis/octopress.git (fetch)
octopress       https://github.com/imathis/octopress.git (push)
origin

You'll first note that my origin has no url. Any attempt to remove it, rename it, etc all fails.

So, change the url manually:

git remote set-url --add origin https://github.com/eduncan911/eduncan911.github.io.git

Then you can confirm it worked by running git remote -v again:

C:\gd\code\octopress [source +2 ~3 -0 !]> git remote -v
octopress       https://github.com/imathis/octopress.git (fetch)
octopress       https://github.com/imathis/octopress.git (push)
origin  https://github.com/eduncan911/eduncan911.github.io.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/eduncan911/eduncan911.github.io.git (push)

This has fixed dozens of git repos I've had issues with, GitHub, BitBucket GitLab, etc.

Answer 4

You can see what remote repositories you are configured to connect to via

git remote -v

That will return a list in this format:

origin  git@github.com:github/git-reference.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:github/git-reference.git (push)

That might help you figure out what the original 'origin' pointed to.

If you want to keep the remote connection that you see with the -v, but still want to follow the Rails tutorial without having to remember 'github' (or some other name) for your tutorial's repo, you can rename your other repository with the command:

git remote rename [current name] [new name]

as in:

git remote rename origin oldrepo

You should then be able to resume your tutorial.

Answer 5

First do a:

git remote rm origin

then

git remote add origin https://github.com/your_user/your_app.git

and voila! Worked for me!

Answer 6

In the special case that you are creating a new repository starting from an old repository that you used as template (Don't do this if this is not your case). Completely erase the git files of the old repository so you can start a new one:

rm -rf .git

And then restart a new git repository as usual:

git init
git add whatever.wvr ("git add --all" if you want to add all files)
git commit -m "first commit"
git remote add origin git@github.com:ppreyer/first_app.git
git push -u origin master

Answer 7

If you need to check which remote repos you have connected with your local repos, theres a cmd:

git remote -v

Now if you want to remove the remote repo (say, origin) then what you can do is:

git remote rm origin

Answer 8

The concept of remote is simply the URL of your remote repository.

The origin is an alias pointing to that URL. So instead of writing the whole URL every single time we want to push something to our repository, we just use this alias and run:

git push -u origin master

Telling to git to push our code from our local master branch to the remote origin repository.

Whenever we clone a repository, git creates this alias for us by default. Also whenever we create a new repository, we just create it our self.

Whatever the case it is, we can always change this name to anything we like, running this:

git remote rename [current-name] [new-name]

Since it is stored on the client side of the git application (on our machine) changing it will not affect anything in our development process, neither at our remote repository. Remember, it is only a name pointing to an address.

The only thing that changes here by renaming the alias, is that we have to declare this new name every time we push something to our repository.

git push -u my-remote-alias master

Obviously a single name can not point to two different addresses. That's why you get this error message. There is already an alias named origin at your local machine. To see how many aliases you have and what are they, you can initiate this command:

git remote -v

This will show you all the aliases you have plus the corresponding URLs.

You can remove them as well if you like running this:

git remote rm my-remote-alias

So in brief:

• find out what do you have already,
• remove or rename them,
• add your new aliases.

Happy coding.

Answer 9

That error message indicates that you already have a remote in your git directory. If you are satisfied with that remote, your can push your code. If not or if you can't push just:

git remote remove origin
git remote add origin git@github.com:ppreyer/first_app.git

Voilà !

Answer 10

It can also happen if you run the command in directory without git initialized. If that's the case run first:

git init

Answer 11

if you already add project for another storage, like you upload to github and then you upload to bitbucket then it shows this type of Error.

How to remove Error: delete git-hub file in your project and then repeat the following steps...

git init       
git remote add origin git@bitbucket.org:Yourname/firstdemotry.git  
git add -A  
git commit -m 'Message'  
git push -u origin master  

Answer 12

for using git you have to be

root

if not then use sudo

for removing origin :

git remote remove origin

for adding origin :

git remote add origin http://giturl

Answer 13

• $ git remote add origin git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git

  In this command origin is not part of command it is just name of your remote repository. You can use any name you want.

  • First You can check that what it contains using below command

  $ git remote -v

  It will gives you result like this origin git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git (fetch) origin git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git (push) origin1 git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git (fetch) origin1 git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git (push)

  if it contains your remote repository path then you can directly push to that without adding origin again

  • If it is not contaning your remote repository path

  Then you can add new origin with different name and use that to push like $ git remote add origin101 git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git

  Or you can rename existing origin name add your origin

  git remote rename origin destination

  fire below command again

  $ git remote -v

  destination git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git (fetch) destination git@gitlab.com:abc/backend/abc.git (push)

  It will change your existing repos name so you can use that origin name

  Or you can just remove your existing origin and add your origin

  git remote rm destination

Answer 14

Try this

• cd existing_repo
• git remote rename origin old-origin

Answer 15

First check To see how many aliases you have and what are they, you can initiate this command git remote -v

Then see in which repository you are in then try git remote set-url --add [Then your repositpory link] git push -u origin master

Answer 16

On bash at least, we can force the return value of the exit code of the command to be 0

You can remove the old remote and add it again

git remote remove $1 || true
git remote add $1 $2