How to Rename Local and Remote Git Branches

Maybe you're working in a Git repo with a specific naming convention, and you misname the branch you're working on. Perhaps you've been hit by an unfortunate typo. Either way, you need to rename your local branch ‑ and maybe even on the remote. Here's how you do that.

Switch to the branch that you need to update, and run:

git checkout old-branch-namegit branch -m updated-branch-name

This renames your local copy of the current branch. You can also do this without first checking out the local branch as a one‑liner like this:

git branch -m old-branch-name updated-branch-name

Then, to get this updated name pushed through to the remote, you need to delete the old remote branch and push your new one in its place.

There are a few ways you can achieve this, but here's the one‑liner I have in my Terminal history:

git push origin :old-branch-name updated-branch-name

Then, you need to check out the new remote branch that you've created:

git checkout updated-branch-name

And then set the upstream branch to be the new remote branch that you've created. Again, here's the shorthand way to do that:

git push origin -u updated-branch-name

And you're done! You've:

1. renamed your local branch,
2. deleted the branch with the old name from the remote,
3. replaced it with a branch with the updated name that you need to use,
4. and reset your upstream branch so that future pushes go to the new branch.

Renaming on Git is a little bit of a long‑winded process, but once you consider how source control works, and the intention behind it, you can pretty easily see how it's a better way forward than just renaming branches; it keeps things clear when looking through branch and repo history, and prevents naming confusion.