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@CristinaSolana
Created February 22, 2012 14:56
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Keeping a fork up to date

1. Clone your fork:

git clone git@github.com:YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORKED-REPO.git

2. Add remote from original repository in your forked repository:

cd into/cloned/fork-repo
git remote add upstream git://github.com/ORIGINAL-DEV-USERNAME/REPO-YOU-FORKED-FROM.git
git fetch upstream

3. Updating your fork from original repo to keep up with their changes:

git pull upstream master
@luisriverag
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I built a web based solution to sync the fork with the original using only GitHub APIs. It's all web, you don't need to do anything on the client
https://forkrefresh.herokuapp.com
As a plus it tells you the status off all your repos as compared to sources of the forks.

Thanks, worked really well on 289 forks I hadn't updated in a looooong time!!!

@pramodjodhani
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Thanks a lot 👍

@RodolfoGS
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Thanks!

@kxrob
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kxrob commented Aug 4, 2020

github should add a button / function for doing this frequently needed (fast-forward) re-sync from upstream without needing that triangle process via local repo + commandline. The local repos could cleanly track one remote.

If one does the sync via github pull-request + "switching the base" + normal Merge, a extra merge commit is inserted (because github internally uses merge --no-ff). Via "Rebase and merge" option of the merge button it doesn't create clean history either, rather produces an extended mess ("branch is N commits ahead + N commits behind ..." !) - probably because a 'commited by info' or so is added to the meta data of the commits.

@DahnJ
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DahnJ commented Aug 9, 2020

Thanks for this!

@ValentineDragan
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The only fix that worked for me, thank you! :)

@CristinaSolana
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Author

Glad you all are finding this helpful. :)

@zcmgyu
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zcmgyu commented Oct 13, 2020

Update Oct 13, 2020:

git pull upstream main

@swathi-vennela
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fatal: Couldn't find remote ref master

after running
git pull upstream master

@mikemartino
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Thank you.

@jasontwuk
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Thanks. This Helps me a lot. 🙂

@laoshaw
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laoshaw commented Dec 10, 2020

These comments all seem to depend on cloning the repo to your local computer and doing the fetch and merge there followed by a push. You can perform the sync to the upstream repo directly on github. Generate a pull request at the upstream repo (there is a link "compare forks") specifying your fork as the base and the upstream branch you want to merge as the head. Generate the pull request and if all goes well, you can accept your PR and you do not have to fetch both to your local site. The merge is done directly on github.

Thanks. Saved my day.

@nakul-shahdadpuri
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Thanks, helped a lot.

@Praful932
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I built a web based solution to sync the fork with the original using only GitHub APIs. It's all web, you don't need to do anything on the client
https://forkrefresh.herokuapp.com
As a plus it tells you the status off all your repos as compared to sources of the forks.

This helps! Thank you

@sami2020pro
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Thank you ❤️

@vivian-duong
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git pull is a git fetch and git merge in one step.
So the git fetch in step 2 is redundant if you're going to do a git pull anyway.

I second this. git fetch and then git pull won't break anything, but it's redundant.

@maryamrmz
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You can update it to:

git pull upstream main

@rebase-upstream
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This post should have been the first Google result. Would have saved me some time.

@emrecoban
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You can update it to:

git pull upstream main

thank you @maryamrmz it worked for me!

@mwaeckerlin
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How to keep a full project in sync, all the branches from the server and automated (no local checkout)?

I just want a slave mirror.

@mathieucarbou
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mathieucarbou commented Apr 29, 2021

Found an automatic and flexible solution using Github Actions that can be easily applied quickly to any fork.
See my blog post: https://blog.mathieu.photography/post/649318432483033088/automatic-fork-syncing-with-github
Or Gist: https://gist.github.com/mathieucarbou/96ab30024f0d3fb44cac970219d23efc

@liosc
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liosc commented Mar 19, 2022

Hi everyone.
I tried the commands suggested in this post. I was able to add the remote but when I try to pull for updating local I get the error "The unauthenticated git protocol on port 9418 is no longer supported.". I solved it using http// instead of git// when adding the upstream.

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