Renaming a branch in GitHub

Question

I just renamed my local branch using

git branch -m oldname newname

but this only renames the local version of the branch. How can I rename

Answer 1

In my case, I needed an additional command,

git branch --unset-upstream

to get my renamed branch to push up to origin newname.

(For ease of typing), I first git checkout oldname. Then run the following:

git branch -m newname
git push origin :oldname*or*git push origin --delete oldname
git branch --unset-upstream
git push -u origin newname or git push origin newname

This extra step may only be necessary because I (tend to) set up remote tracking on my branches via git push -u origin oldname. This way, when I have oldname checked out, I subsequently only need to type git push rather than git push origin oldname.

If I do not use the command git branch --unset-upstream before git push origin newbranch, git re-creates oldbranch and pushes newbranch to origin oldbranch -- defeating my intent.