Rename local and remote branch on GitHub

rename-branch-github.txt

git branch -m old_branch new_branch         # Rename branch locally    
git push origin :old_branch                 # Delete the old branch    
git push --set-upstream origin new_branch   # Push the new branch, set local branch to track the new remote

At first, this didn’t help me, because I could’t delete my master branch with git push origin :master (error: failed to push some refs to 'git@github.com:[user]/[repo].git'). However, I’ve found a website, where I found following commands, which are working.

git branch -m old_branch new_branch         # Rename branch locally
git checkout new_branch                     # If not on old branch already
git push origin placeholder                 # Push up the placeholder branch
git push --set-upstream origin new_branch   # Push the new branch, set local branch to track the new remote

# Then set the new branch to be the github default branch.
# Go to the main github page for your forked repository, and click on the ‘Admin’ button.
git push origin :old_branch                 # Delete the old branch

Edit

For some reason, afterwards I needed to do the following two commands, too:

git branch --unset-upstream                 # Unset the old branch as origin
git push --set-upstream origin new_branch   # Set the new branch as origin