Are you wondering about how to rename the Git branch remote? Here’s how we do it. 

Though Git has high branching capabilities, renaming the branch often cause errors.

At Bobcares, we often receive requests to fix those errors as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s discuss how our Support Engineers do it easily for our customers.

More about Git

Have any idea about Git? Let’s have a brief look at it.

As we all know, version control systems help to manage the changes and configurations of an application.

Also, it allows us to compare files, identify the differences, and merge the necessary changes.

And, Git is a distributed version control system that easily tracks changes in the source code.

When compared to other version control systems, Git possesses high branching capability.

How to rename the Git branch remote?

So far we have seen the main aspects of Git. Now, let’s get into the main topic.

Actually, Git branches are pointers to the changes we make.

Local branches are visible only to the local users while remote branches are found in remote locations.

Recently, one of our customers approached us with an error while renaming these branches.

He wanted to rename a remote branch name old_name to new_name and used the below command.

git remote rename old_name new_name

But, he received an error message as follows,

Our Support Engineers checked the error in detail and found an error with the commands used.

We can do the renaming in two ways.

1. Change the local branch and push the changes

Using this method, we first rename the local branch to a new name and then delete the old branch.

To rename the local branch to a new name, we used the below command,

git branch -m <old_name> <new_name>

Then, we delete the old branch on remote as follows,

git push <remote> --delete <old_name>

2. Push the branch to remote with the new name

In this method, we push the new branch to the remote first. And, at the same time keeping the original name locally.

To push the new branch to remote, we use the command,

git push <remote> <new_name>

And, we use the below command to reset the upstream branch for the new_name local branch.

git push <remote> -u <new_name>

[Need more assistance to fix this error?- We’re available 24/7.]

Conclusion

In today’s article, we discussed Git and saw how our Support Engineers easily rename git branch remote for our customers.