Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@patik
Last active October 17, 2023 02:19
Star You must be signed in to star a gist
Save patik/b8a9dc5cd356f9f6f980 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
How to squash commits in git

Squashing Git Commits

The easy and flexible way

This method avoids merge conflicts if you have periodically pulled master into your branch. It also gives you the opportunity to squash into more than 1 commit, or to re-arrange your code into completely different commits (e.g. if you ended up working on three different features but the commits were not consecutive).

Note: You cannot use this method if you intend to open a pull request to merge your feature branch. This method requires committing directly to master.

Switch to the master branch and make sure you are up to date:

git checkout master && git pull

Merge your feature branch into the master branch locally:

git merge feature_branch

Reset the local master branch to origin's state:

git reset origin/master

Now all of your changes are considered as unstaged changed. You can stage and commit them into one or more commits.

git add . --all
git commit

(Source)

The hard(er) and less flexible way

This method only allows you to squash the last X consecutive commits into a single commit. Also, if you have merged master into your branch along the way, you will have to manually merge your new (squashed) commit into master and resolve the merge conflicts.

Use this method if you have not merged master into your branch, you plan to combine all commits into one, and you only changed one feature of the project; or, regardless of those conditions, you must use this method if you intend to open a pull request to merge your code.

Combining the commits

To squash the last 3 commits into one:

git reset --soft HEAD~3
git commit -m "New message for the combined commit"

Pushing the squashed commit

If the commits have been pushed to the remote:

git push origin +name-of-branch

The plus sign forces the remote branch to accept your rewritten history, otherwise you will end up with divergent branches

If the commits have NOT yet been pushed to the remote:

git push origin name-of-branch

In other words, just a normal push like any other


Main source: http://stackoverflow.com/a/5201642/348995
Source for info about when commits where already pushed: http://stackoverflow.com/a/5668050/348995

Copy link

ghost commented Sep 26, 2017

git checkout master && git fetch && git pull

git pull is a synonym for git fetch && git merge so your version will git fetch twice, although the second time it likely won't fetch anything, so it probably doesn't matter.

git merge feature_branch
I think you are better to

  • checkout the feature_branch
  • merge master into it
  • squash your commits on the feature_branch
  • push your feature_branch to the remote (origin or other)
  • create a pull request from the remote feature_branch to the remote master (origin/master).
  • Someone else reviews & merges your (squashed) commit to origin/master.

The reason I say that is because if you've merged your feature_branch to your local master, how do you then push it to origin master with an opportunity for someone else to review & merge your commit? I don't think you can create a pull request from your local to a remote, only push directly,
Although, workflows in git differ, so this might work for you if no-one is reviewing the code and you are happy to just push direct to origin/master. If that's the case, creating branches is more of a convenience for working on multiple discrete changes and being able to switch between them cleanly.

@singhai0
Copy link

👍

@lehone-hp
Copy link

cool

@patik
Copy link
Author

patik commented Nov 3, 2017

@davoscollective Thanks for the feedback. I removed the extraneous git fetch.

As for the second part, you are correct that it removes the opportunity for a pull request and probably doesn't work for many teams' workflows. I do have a note/warning in the text about this, however I've made it bolder so hopefully it saves some people a headache.

@coderbit-net
Copy link

Very useful )) Thanks.

@johankritzinger
Copy link

johankritzinger commented Feb 7, 2018

Ta, very useful. I like the first one, and useful even without pushing to master:

git checkout master && git pull
Merge your feature branch into the master branch locally:

git merge feature_branch

Reset the local master branch to origin's state:

git reset origin/master

Now all of your changes are considered as unstaged changed. You can stage and commit them into one or more commits.

At this point, create the branch you're going to create a pull request for:

git checkout -b merging_branch

git add . --all
git commit

git push --set-upstream origin merging_branch

Then create a pull request etc.

@AnrDaemon
Copy link

Pro tip: do NOT squash file renames together with file edits. You will end up with lost ancestry history.

@seandockery
Copy link

Good article.

git reset --soft HEAD~3
git commit -m "New message for the combined commit"

I am guessing that it is assumed, but you should probably add an explicit "git add" between these statements. Changing -m to -am may not be sufficient if there are new files that were previously un-versioned.

@kkannan-carecloud
Copy link

Is it still possible to squash all commits in the remote branch if I have already pushed multiple commits to it ?

@tombusby
Copy link

tombusby commented Jun 1, 2018

@kkannan-carecloud, yes, you'll have to do a "git push -f" but be aware that this will cause problems for people that have already pulled that branch.

@IanKemp
Copy link

IanKemp commented Jun 19, 2018

Why would you use the first option over git merge --squash?

@nigelnindo
Copy link

I used to use the second option, but nowadays a much easier way to squash commits I use (for me, at least) is git rebase HEAD~[x number of commits] -i

@Qubad786
Copy link

I usually do squashing while interactive rebase.

git rebase -i origin/master your-branch

@LeslieGerman
Copy link

Your 2nd solution was the only one I could find on the internet, which shows how to do NON-interactive squash on a single branch (not merging).

I had to squash 134 commits, so interactive squash was not attractive for me... 😋

@SehrishHussain
Copy link

can I squash commits I made on separate branches?

@patik
Copy link
Author

patik commented Apr 9, 2021

can I squash commits I made on separate branches?

Do you mean that you have commits on branch A that you want to squash with commits on branch B? I don't think so, at least not with one command. Probably you can merge one branch into the other one first, then squash them.

@ashim-wmg
Copy link

git push origin +name-of-branch

in the + synonymous with force ?

@patik
Copy link
Author

patik commented Nov 7, 2021

in the + synonymous with force ?

According to the docs, it seems to be the same

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment