How to check out a remote Git branch?

Sidenote: With modern Git (>= 1.6.6), you are able to use just

git checkout test

(note that it is 'test' not 'origin/test') to perform magical DWIM-mery and create local branch 'test' for you, for which upstream would be remote-tracking branch 'origin/test'.

The * (no branch) in git branch output means that you are on unnamed branch, in so called "detached HEAD" state (HEAD points directly to commit, and is not symbolic reference to some local branch). If you made some commits on this unnamed branch, you can always create local branch off current commit:

git checkout -b test HEAD

In this case, you probably want to create a local test branch which is tracking the remote test branch:

$ git branch test origin/test

In earlier versions of git, you needed an explicit --track option, but that is the default now when you are branching off a remote branch.

Accepted answer not working for you?

While the first and selected answer is technically correct, there's the possibility you have not yet retrieved all objects and refs from the remote repository. If that is the case, you'll receive the following error:

$ git checkout -b remote_branch origin/remote_branch

fatal: git checkout: updating paths is incompatible with switching branches.
Did you intend to checkout 'origin/remote_branch' which can not be resolved as commit?

Solution

If you receive this message, you must first do a git fetch origin where origin is the name of the remote repository prior to running git checkout remote_branch. Here's a full example with responses:

$ git fetch origin
remote: Counting objects: 140, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (30/30), done.
remote: Total 69 (delta 36), reused 66 (delta 33)
Unpacking objects: 100% (69/69), done.
From https://github.com/githubuser/repo-name
   e6ef1e0..5029161  develop    -> origin/develop
 * [new branch]      demo       -> origin/demo
   d80f8d7..359eab0  master     -> origin/master

$ git checkout demo
Branch demo set up to track remote branch demo from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'demo'

As you can see, running git fetch origin retrieved any remote branches we were not yet setup to track on our local machine. From there, since we now have a ref to the remote branch, we can simply run git checkout remote_branch and we'll gain the benefits of remote tracking.

I tried the above solution, but it didn't work. Try this, it works:

git fetch origin 'remote_branch':'local_branch_name'

This will fetch the remote branch and create a new local branch (if not exists already) with name local_branch_name and track the remote one in it.

This will DWIM for a remote not named origin (documentation):

$ git checkout -t remote_name/remote_branch

To add a new remote, you will need to do the following first:

$ git remote add remote_name location_of_remote
$ git fetch remote_name

The first tells Git the remote exists, the second gets the commits.

To clone a Git repository, do:

git clone <either ssh url /http url>

The above command checks out all of the branches, but only the master branch will be initialized. If you want to checkout the other branches, do:

git checkout -t origin/future_branch (for example)

This command checks out the remote branch, and your local branch name will be same as the remote branch.

If you want to override your local branch name on checkout:

git checkout -t -b enhancement origin/future_branch

Now your local branch name is enhancement, but your remote branch name is future_branch.

Documentation

Use:

git checkout -b <BRANCH-NAME> <REMOTE-NAME>/<BRANCH-NAME>

Other answers do not work with modern Git in my benign case. You might need to pull first if the remote branch is new, but I haven't checked that case.

You can try

git fetch remote
git checkout --track -b local_branch_name origin/branch_name

or

git fetch
git checkout -b local_branch_name origin/branch_name

If the branch is on something other than the origin remote I like to do the following:

$ git fetch
$ git checkout -b second/next upstream/next

This will checkout the next branch on the upstream remote in to a local branch called second/next. Which means if you already have a local branch named next it will not conflict.

$ git branch -a
* second/next
  remotes/origin/next
  remotes/upstream/next

git fetch && git checkout your-branch-name

git branch -r says the object name is invalid, because that branch name isn't in Git's local branch list. Update your local branch list from origin with:

git remote update

And then try checking out your remote branch again.

This worked for me.

I believe git fetch pulls in all remote branches, which is not what the original poster wanted.

Commands

git fetch --all
git checkout -b <ur_new_local_branch_name> origin/<Remote_Branch_Name>

are equal to

 git fetch --all

and then

 git checkout -b fixes_for_dev origin/development

Both will create a latest fixes_for_dev from development

Please follow the command to create an empty folder. Enter that and use this command:

saifurs-Mini:YO-iOS saifurrahman$ git clone your_project_url
Cloning into 'iPhoneV1'...
remote: Counting objects: 34230, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (24028/24028), done.
remote: Total 34230 (delta 22212), reused 15340 (delta 9324)
Receiving objects: 100% (34230/34230), 202.53 MiB | 294.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (22212/22212), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
saifurs-Mini:YO-iOS saifurrahman$ cd iPhoneV1/
saifurs-Mini:iPhoneV1 saifurrahman$ git checkout 1_4_0_content_discovery
Branch 1_4_0_content_discovery set up to track remote branch 1_4_0_content_discovery from origin.
Switched to a new branch '1_4_0_content_discovery'