Could I change my name and surname in all previous commits?

Question

I would like to change my name, surname and email in my all commits, is it possible?

Is it a reprository for only you, for a few people or for a big project? — thejh, Dec 20 '10 at 21:06
possible duplicate of [How do I change the author of a commit in git?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/750172/how-do-i-change-the-author-of-a-commit-in-git) — Josh Lee, Dec 20 '10 at 21:32
possible duplicate of [How do I rewrite committer names in a git repository?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1566809/how-do-i-rewrite-committer-names-in-a-git-repository) — Josh Lee, Feb 28 '11 at 21:10
Possible duplicate of [Change the author and committer name and e-mail of multiple commits in Git](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/750172/change-the-author-and-committer-name-and-e-mail-of-multiple-commits-in-git) — Stevoisiak, Nov 08 '17 at 17:48

score 215 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 01 '18 at 18:27

215

Use git-filter-branch.

git filter-branch --commit-filter 'if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" = "Josh Lee" ];
  then export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Hobo Bob"; export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=hobo@example.com;
  fi; git commit-tree "$@"'

This only affects the author, not the committer (which for most commits will be the same as the author). If you want to rewrite those as well, set the GIT_COMMITTER_NAME and GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL variables.

The standard warning about rewriting history applies; only do it to history that has not yet been shared.

June 2018 Update

The manual now includes a solution, using --env-filter, in its examples: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-filter-branch#_examples :

git filter-branch --env-filter '
    if test "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" = "root@localhost"
    then
        GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=john@example.com
    fi
    if test "$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL" = "root@localhost"
    then
        GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL=john@example.com
    fi
' -- --all

edited Jun 01 '18 at 18:27

Jeff Clemens

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answered Dec 20 '10 at 21:16

Josh Lee

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If you’re using `msysgit`, you still have access to `bash`. Otherwise, I’ve no clue. – Josh Lee Dec 20 '10 at 21:59
@Joshua if you're using something where you don't have bash, you could probably use windows batch scripting, though I haven't tried it. – Tyler Dec 22 '10 at 05:41
and what about tags? this solution won't change author of tags – piotrek Jan 05 '15 at 22:37
@Joshua check out the git repo on a linux box and perform the fix there – Will Sheppard May 11 '15 at 08:47
Is there an options which result in new branch and leave source commits intact? – Eugen Konkov Mar 30 '18 at 16:20
+1. Good solution. Would be even nicer if you put the old and new emails in two env var at the beginning of the line, something like: `OLD_EMAIL=local@localhost && NEW_EMAIL=john@example.com && git filter-branch --env-filter " if test \"\$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL\" = \"$OLD_EMAIL\" then GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=$NEW_EMAIL fi if test \"\$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL\" = \"$OLD_EMAIL\" then GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL=$NEW_EMAIL fi " -- --all` then this answer would be workable from command-line – xiay Jul 22 '18 at 23:18
@EugenKonkov Source commits are intact because you create a branch/tree from the first commit you modify. If you want a branch to point to old commits, just first create a new branch before rewriting history. – xiay Jul 22 '18 at 23:22
Wonderful, but don't forget `--tag-name-filter cat` to rewrite tags; see https://stackoverflow.com/a/7673115/421049 . Unfortunately the tagger emails don't seem to be updated; see https://stackoverflow.com/q/51790056/421049 . – Garret Wilson Aug 10 '18 at 16:17
@xiay Is `root@localhost` supposed to stay the same? – David G May 27 '22 at 00:09

user11153 · Answer 2 · 2014-06-01T14:32:30.600

57

To rewrite both author and commiter in all selected commits:

git filter-branch --commit-filter \
'if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" = "OldAuthor Name" ]; then \
export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Author Name";\
export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=authorEmail@example.com;\
export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="Commmiter Name";\
export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL=commiterEmail@example.com;\
fi;\
git commit-tree "$@"'

edited Jun 01 '14 at 14:32

answered May 09 '14 at 12:33

user11153

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But how to apply changes to remote server? – vikyd May 25 '17 at 07:56
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@Viky Try `git push --all origin --force` – user11153 May 25 '17 at 08:09
2

It works for me ! I'm using GitLab, I have to Unprotect the branch before push command. – vikyd May 25 '17 at 08:26

score 40 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 07 '16 at 02:52

40

If there are no other authors, you can do:

git filter-branch --commit-filter 'export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="authorname"; \
export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL=mail@example.com; git commit-tree "$@"'

edited Aug 07 '16 at 02:52

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answered Jun 27 '12 at 07:15

denis.peplin

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It's not rewriting "Committer:" info. – user11153 May 04 '14 at 13:26
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It's not intended to rewrite committer info. If you want to do that, export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME and GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL as well (see accepted answer). – chronospoon Nov 03 '14 at 17:59

score 13 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 12 '16 at 17:56

Save the script below as e.g. ~/.bin/git-replace-author and run it using, e.g:

git replace-author "John Ssmith" "John Smith" "johnsmith@example.com"

With no arguments, it updates all commits with your name to use your current email address according to Git config.

DEFAULT_NAME="$(git config user.name)"
DEFAULT_EMAIL="$(git config user.email)"
export OLD_NAME="${1:-$DEFAULT_NAME}"
export NEW_NAME="${2:-$DEFAULT_NAME}"
export NEW_EMAIL="${3:-$DEFAULT_EMAIL}"

echo "Old:" $OLD_NAME "<*>"
echo "New:" "$NEW_NAME <$NEW_EMAIL>"
echo "To undo, use: git reset $(git rev-parse HEAD)"

git filter-branch --env-filter \
'if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" = "${OLD_NAME}" ]; then
    export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="${NEW_NAME}"
    export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="${NEW_EMAIL}"
    export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="${NEW_NAME}"
    export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="${NEW_EMAIL}"
fi'

Raw (to download)

As a short note: `~/.bin/` needs to be inside the users `$PATH` and the file needs to be executable, so run: `chmod +x ~/.bin/git-replace-author`. — Michael Gecht, Feb 20 '18 at 14:09

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 20 '10 at 21:06

3

Only if you haven't pushed your commits to the world. Other wise everyone else has your old name in their repo which is unlikely you can change everyone's.

answered Dec 20 '10 at 21:06

EnabrenTane

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True, but in some cases you have no choice. I my case I had a wrong email address configured in my git config (as I could see with "git config --global -l"). As a result, I had no commit activity showing up in my own Github repo (because the email address didn't match with the email configured in Github) ! To solve this, I fixed my local commits using the recipe from http://stackoverflow.com/a/23564785/2474068 (worked perfect) and then I pushed the changed commits to Github using "git push -u -f origin master" (with the force flag "-f"). That goes against accepted practice but I had no choice! – leo Nov 10 '16 at 11:10
1

Yes, my point was that any forks of that repo wouldn't have that change unless they accepted your force push. It would be challenging to get every fork to update :) – EnabrenTane Nov 10 '16 at 22:01

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 05 '19 at 21:03

With Git 2.24 (Q4 2019), git filter-branch (and BFG) is deprecated.

The equivalent would be, using newren/git-filter-repo, and its example section:

cd repo
git filter-repo --mailmap my-mailmap

with my-mailmap:

Correct Name <correct@email.com> <old@email.com>

That would replace the author name and email of any commit done by anyone with <old@email.com>

See git shortlog mapping author section for the exact syntax of

Could I change my name and surname in all previous commits?

6 Answers6

June 2018 Update

Linked

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