Git: What's the best practice to "git clone" into an existing folder?

I have a working copy of the project, without any source control meta data. Now, I'd like to do the equivalent of git-clone into this folder, and keep my local changes.

git-clone doesn't allow me to clone into an existing folder. What is the best practice here?

This can be done by cloning to a new directory, then moving the .git directory into your existing directory.

If your existing directory is named "code".

git clone https://myrepo.com/git.git temp
mv temp/.git code/.git
rm -rf temp

This can also be done without doing a checkout during the clone command; more information can be found here.

Don't clone, fetch instead. In the repo:

git init
git remote add origin $url_of_clone_source
git fetch origin
git checkout -b master --track origin/master # origin/master is clone's default

Then you can reset the tree to get the commit you want:

git reset origin/master # or whatever commit you think is proper...

and you are like you cloned.

The interesting question here (and the one without answer): How to find out which commit your naked tree was based on, hence to which position to reset to.

The following i did, to checkout master branch in an existing directory:

git init
git remote add origin [my-repo]
git fetch
git checkout origin/master -ft

Using a temp directory is fine, but this will work if you want to avoid that step. From the root of your working directory:

$ rm -fr .git
$ git init
$ git remote add origin your-git-url
$ git fetch
$ git reset --mixed origin/master

I'd git clone to a new directory and copy the content of the existing directory to the new clone.

git clone your_repo tmp && mv tmp/.git . && rm -rf tmp && git reset --mixed

To clone a git repo into an empty existing directory do the following:

cd myfolder
git clone https://myrepo.com/git.git . 

Notice the . at the end of your git clone command. That will download the repo into the current working directory.

Lots of answers already to do it the way that the OP asked. But it worth noting that doing it the opposite way around is far simpler:

git clone repo-url tmp/
cp -R working/ tmp/

You now have the desired target state - fresh clone + local-changes.

git init
git remote add origin git@github.com:<user>/<repo>.git
git remote -v
git pull origin master

This is the Best of all methods i came across

Clone just the repository's .git folder (excluding files as they are already in existing-dir) into an empty temporary directory

1. git clone --no-checkout repo-path-to-clone existing-dir/existing-dir.tmp //might want --no-hardlinks for cloning local repo

Move the .git folder to the directory with the files. This makes existing-dir a git repo.

2. mv existing-dir/existing-dir.tmp/.git existing-dir/

Delete the temporary directory

3. rmdir existing-dir/existing-dir.tmp

4. cd existing-dir

Git thinks all files are deleted, this reverts the state of the repo to HEAD.

WARNING: any local changes to the files will be lost.

5. git reset --mixed HEAD

There are two approaches to this. Where possible I would start with a clean folder for your new git working directory and then copy your version of things in later. This might look something like*:

mv $dir $dir.orig
git clone $url $dir
rsync -av --delete --exclude '.git' $dir.orig/ $dir/
rm -rf $dir.orig

At this point you should have a pretty clean working copy with your previous working folder as the current working directory so any changes include file deletions will show up on the radar if you run git status.

On the other hand if you really must do it the other way around, you can get the same result with something like this:

cd $dir
git clone --no-checkout $url tempdir
mv tempdir/.git .
rmdir tempdir
git reset --mixed HEAD

Either way, the first thing I would do is run something like git stash to get a copy of all your local changes set aside, then you can re-apply them and work through which ones you want to get committed.

* _{Both examples assume you start out on the shell in the parent directory of your project.}

Usually I will clone the initial repository first, and then move everything in the existing folder to the initial repository. It works every time.

The advantage of this method is that you won't missing anything of the initial repository including README or .gitignore.

You can also use the command below to finish the steps:

$ git clone https://github.com/your_repo.git && mv existing_folder/* your_repo

You can do it by typing the following command lines recursively:

mkdir temp_dir   //  Create new temporary dicetory named temp_dir
git clone https://www...........git temp_dir // Clone your git repo inside it
mv temp_dir/* existing_dir // Move the recently cloned repo content from the temp_dir to your existing_dir
rm -rf temp_dir // Remove the created temporary directory

If you are using at least git 1.7.7 (which taught clone the --config option), to turn the current directory into a working copy:

git clone example.com/my.git ./.git --mirror --config core.bare=false

This works by:

• Cloning the repository into a new .git folder
• --mirror makes the new clone into a purely metadata folder as .git needs to be
• --config core.bare=false countermands the implicit bare=true of the --mirror option, thereby allowing the repository to have an associated working directory and act like a normal clone

---

This obviously won't work if a .git metadata directory already exists in the directory you wish to turn into a working copy.

Just use the . at the end of the git clone command (being in that directory), like this:

cd your_dir_to_clone_in/
git clone [email protected]/somerepo/ .

For reference, from the Gitlab Commandline instruction:

Push an existing folder

cd existing_folder
git init
git remote add origin <url>
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git push -u origin master

Or Push an existing Git repository

cd existing_repo
git remote rename origin old-origin
git remote add origin <url>
git push -u origin --all
git push -u origin --tags

if you are cloning the same repository, then run the following snippet through the existing repository

git pull origin master