Skip to main content

Git Fetch

The git fetch commands helps users download commits, refs and files from the remote repository to the local repository. These commits are done by the teammates and people associated with the project in the organization or maybe the user itself directly on the remote repository. In other words, executing git fetch command will help you see the updates from all the teammates on the repository.

git fetch does not hurt your working repository at all. The git fetch command is a great way to stand at a place from where you can see the changes and decide if you want to keep them or discard them. Keeping the changes is called merging in Git and it is an explicit operation. So until you press git merge, you won’t be adding anything.

Git Fetch Common Usage


  • git fetch <repository url> : To fetch the complete remote repository.

    Example:

    git fetch gitopia://gitopia147dgrtq5ywww473uz680fx2ucex9fv3qnw94zm/hello-world

    Output:

    From gitopia://gitopia147dgrtq5ywww473uz680fx2ucex9fv3qnw94zm/hello-world
    * branch HEAD -> FETCH_HEAD


  • git fetch <branch URL><branch name> : To fetch a specific branch from a repository.

    Example:

    git fetch gitopia://gitopia147dgrtq5ywww473uz680fx2ucex9fv3qnw94zm/hello-world dev

    Output:

    From gitopia://gitopia147dgrtq5ywww473uz680fx2ucex9fv3qnw94zm/hello-world
    * branch dev -> FETCH_HEAD


  • git fetch --all : To fetch all the branches simultaneously from a remote repository

    Example:

    git fetch --all

    Output:

    Fetching origin
    From gitopia://gitopia147dgrtq5ywww473uz680fx2ucex9fv3qnw94zm/hello-world
    * [new branch] master -> origin/master
    * [new branch] dev -> origin/dev


  • git fetch origin : To synchronize the local repository.

    Example:

    git fetch origin

    Output:

    From gitopia://gitopia147dgrtq5ywww473uz680fx2ucex9fv3qnw94zm/hello-world
    * [new branch] dev2 -> origin/dev2

    You can learn more about the git fetch command and its options in git-scm's documentation.