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

Here's something I'd consider robust:

• Doesn't update remote tracking for existing branches
• Doesn't try to update HEAD to track origin/HEAD
• Allows remotes named other than origin
• Properly shell quoted

for b in $(git branch -r --format='%(refname:short)'); do
  [[ "${b#*/}" = HEAD ]] && continue
  git show-ref -q --heads "${b#*/}" || git branch --track "${b#*/}" "$b";
done
git pull --all

It's not necessary to git fetch --all as passing -all to git pull passes this option to the internal fetch.

Credit to this answer.