How to fetch all Git branches

Question

I cloned a Git repository, which contains about five branches. However, when I do git branch I only see one of them:

$ git branch
* master
         


        

Answer 1

You can fetch all the branches by:

git fetch --all

or:

git fetch origin --depth=10000 $(git ls-remote -h -t origin)

^{The --depth=10000 parameter may help if you've shallowed repository.}

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To pull all the branches, use:

git pull --all

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If above won't work, then precede the above command with:

git config remote.origin.fetch '+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*'

as the remote.origin.fetch could support only a specific branch while fetching, especially when you cloned your repo with --single-branch. Check this by: git config remote.origin.fetch.

After that you should be able to checkout any branch.

See also:

• How to fetch all remote branches?
• How to clone all remote branches in Git?

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To push all the branches to the remote, use:

git push --all

eventually --mirror to mirror all refs.

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If your goal is to duplicate a repository, see: Duplicating a repository article at GitHub.