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I just checked out an earlier commit from my local git repo. I haven't made any changes to it, I was just looking at it. Now I want to go back to my latest commit - how do I do that?

The exact command I used to check it out:

git checkout e5dff6b3c5d704f9b598de46551355d18235ac08

Now when I type git log, at the top I see this checked out commit, but none of my later commits. Did I accidentally delete those?

Brad Koch
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Yuval Karmi
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4 Answers4

242

Try this first:

git checkout master

(If you're on a different branch than master (or main), use the branch name there instead.)

If that doesn't work, try...

For a single file:

git checkout HEAD /path/to/file

For the entire repository working copy:

git reset --hard HEAD

And if that doesn't work, then you can look in the reflog to find your old head SHA and reset to that:

git reflog
git reset --hard <sha from reflog>

HEAD is a name that always points to the latest commit in your current branch.

Conrad
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Amber
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  • but how do I view my commits to decide which SHA1 hash to give it? – Yuval Karmi Aug 30 '10 at 15:43
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    You don't - you type `HEAD`, verbatim. Git already knows what `HEAD` means. However, if you really, really wanted to give it a SHA1 instead, you could use `git log` to look at the commit log. – Amber Aug 30 '10 at 15:44
  • when I run `git reset --hard HEAD` it brings me back to that checked out commit... I'll post the exact command I used to check it out. – Yuval Karmi Aug 30 '10 at 15:45
  • (If you're curious, you can type `git rev-parse HEAD` and see that it gives you a SHA1 corresponding to your latest commit.) – Amber Aug 30 '10 at 15:45
  • I've added two new options above, try them (in order - try the checkout version first). – Amber Aug 30 '10 at 15:47
  • From your edit, it looks like what you actually did was check out a full revision, which doesn't get rid of your branch - it actually treats it as a separate checkout, unrelated to your branch. `git checkout master` (or your branchname instead of `master`) should get you back to where you need to be. – Amber Aug 30 '10 at 15:49
  • hehe `git reflog` and `git reset --hard ` worked PERFECTLY. thank you thank you thank you! – Yuval Karmi Aug 30 '10 at 15:49
  • Amber: You might want to move `git checkout master` up to the top of the answer - since the OP checked out an SHA1 directly, HEAD was clearly detached, so that's probably the most helpful thing for others finding this question. – Cascabel Aug 30 '10 at 16:02
90

To undo git checkout do git checkout -, similarly to cd and cd - in shell.

Gaylord Thankyou Johnson
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18

You probably want git checkout master, or git checkout [branchname].

wuputah
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5

If you are using github, chances are the name for default branch is no longer master. Try git checkout main instead.

Ng Ju Ping
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    Come on! This question was ASKED 10 years, 9 months ago (at the time I am writing this comment). The default branch was `master` at that time. And the question is not related to checking out to a non-existing branch. :D – Hamees A. Khan Jun 07 '21 at 10:59
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    This could be very relevant to someone who is reading this today. I don't understand why thread necromancers get such a bad rep. Just because the post is old doesn't mean no one will ever read it again. If it did then what would be the point of even keeping these old questions up? – segj Oct 16 '22 at 21:42