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Camilo
Camilo

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Archiving git branches

This is a quick way to archive a git branch. Maybe you do not use the code anymore and the branch is cluttering the repo but for backup or historical reasons you need to keep it somewhere.

The first thing is to checkout to the branch

$ git checkout my-branch
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Then create a new tag. I use the format archive/branch-{name}

$ git tag archive/branch-my-branch
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Now we can upload the tags to Github or Gitlab

$ git push origin --tags
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And delete the branch from local and origin repos.

Be sure to be in another branch like master

$ git checkout master
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Then

$ git branch -d my-branch
$ git push origin :my-branch
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If you need to delete the tag (an all the branch backup) from local

$ git tag -d archive/branch-my-branch
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Or from origin

$ git push --delete origin archive/branch-my-branch
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This will erase all tagged branch data though. Please be careful.

Top comments (2)

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hugo__df profile image
Hugo Di Francesco

The title is quite confusing because if I recall, git has an 'archive' command which exports to a zip 😂.

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clsource profile image
Camilo

lol xd. well git happens, I don't know if I should update the title since the url would maintain I guess.