Apply changes from one Git branch to another

1. In the Branches popup (main menu Git | Branches) or in the Branches pane of the Git tool window, select the target branch that you want to integrate the changes to, and choose Checkout from the context menu to switch to that branch.

2. Do one of the following:

   • If you do not need to specify options for the merge, select the branch that you want to merge into the current branch and choose Merge into Current from the submenu.

   • If you need to specify merge options, from the main menu choose VCS Git | Merge Changes to open the Merge dialog:

     

     Select the branch that you want to merge into the current branch, click Modify options and choose from the following:

     • --no-ff: a merge commit will be created in all cases, even if the merge could be resolved as a fast-forward.

     • --ff-only: the merge will be resolved only if it is possible to fast-forward.

     • --squash: a single commit with all pulled changes will be created on top of the current branch.

     • -m: you will be able to edit the message for the merge commit.

     • --no-commit: a merge will be performed, but a merge commit will not be created so that you can inspect the result of the merge before committing.

   Click Merge.

If your working tree is clean (which means you have no uncommitted changes), and no conflicts occur between your feature branch and the target branch, Git will merge the two branches, and the merge commit will appear in the Log tab of the Git tool window Alt09:

If conflicts occur between your branch and the target branch, you will be prompted to resolve them (refer to Resolve conflicts). If there are unresolved conflicts left after a merge, the Merge Conflicts node will appear in the corresponding changelist in the Changes view with a link to resolve them.

If you have local changes that will be overwritten by merge, IntelliJ IDEA will suggest performing Smart merge. If you select this option, IntelliJ IDEA will stash uncommitted changes, perform merge, and then unstash the changes.

note

You can cancel an unfinished merge operation by selecting the Abort action from the Git Branches popup.

1. From the main menu select Git | Rebase:

   

2. From the list, select the target branch onto which you want to rebase the current branch:

   

3. If you need to rebase the source branch starting from a particular commit instead of rebasing the entire branch, click Modify options and choose --onto. In the source branch field, enter the hash of the commit starting from which you want to apply the current branch to the new base:

   

   tip

   To copy a commit hash, select it in the Log, right-click it and choose Copy Revision Number.

4. If the branch you want to rebase is not currently checked out, click Modify options, click Select another branch to rebase, and choose a branch from the list that appears:

   

   IntelliJ IDEA will check out this branch before starting the rebase operation.

5. If you want to rebase all commits reachable in the branch, click Modify options and choose --root (for more information on this option, refer to git-rebase).

6. If you need to keep empty commits, which are commits that do not change anything from their parent, click Modify options and choose --keep-empty (for more information on this option, refer to git-rebase).

7. If you want to preserve merge commits during the rebase for the sake of keeping them in the branch history, click Modify options and choose --preserve-merges (this option is unavailable for interactive rebase).

8. Click Rebase.

note

You can cancel an unfinished rebase operation or resume an interrupted rebase by selecting the Abort or Continue actions respectively from the top of the Git Branches popup.

If you do not need to specify options for the rebase, you can initiate a rebase without invoking the rebase dialog. In the Branches popup or in the Branches pane of the Git tool window select a branch and choose one of the following actions:

• Pull into Current Using Rebase (for remote branches) to fetch changes from the selected branch and rebase the current branch on top of these changes.

• Checkout and Rebase onto Current (for both remote and local branches) to check out the selected branch and rebase it on top of the branch that is currently checked out. If the remote branch doesn't exist locally, IntelliJ IDEA will silently create a tracked local branch, checkout into it and rebase.

• Rebase Current onto Selected (for both remote and local branches) to rebase the branch that is currently checked out on top of the selected.

1. In the Branches popup (main menu Git | Branches), select the target branch that you want to integrate the changes to and choose Checkout from the popup menu to switch to that branch.

2. Open the Git tool window Alt09 and switch to the Log tab.

3. Locate the commit containing the changes you want to cherry-pick.

   You can filter commits by branch, user or date. You can also click on the toolbar and select Highlight | Non-Picked Commits option to grey out the commits that have already been applied to the current branch. If you know the commit hash, or are looking for a tagged commit, you can also use the Go to Hash / Branch / Tag action (press Ctrl0F in the Log tab of the Git tool window Alt09, or click on the toolbar).

4. Select the required commit. Use the information in the Commit Details area to make sure these are the changes you want to transfer to another branch.

5. Click Cherry-pick on the toolbar. IntelliJ IDEA will apply and commit changes to the target branch.

6. If the cherry-pick failed with conflicts, the selected changes will appear in the Changes area that you can see in the Changes view. You can review these changes and commit them later if necessary.

   If you want IntelliJ IDEA to create changelists automatically in case of cherry-pick fail, switch on the corresponding setting in Settings | Version Control | Changelists.

7. Push the changes to the target branch.

1. In the Branches popup (main menu Git | Branches), select the target branch that you want to integrate the changes to and choose Checkout from the popup menu to switch to that branch.

2. Open the Git tool window Alt09 and switch to the Log tab.

3. Locate the commit that contains the changes that you want to apply.

   You can filter commits by branch, user or date. You can also click on the toolbar and select Highlight | Non-Picked Commits option to grey out the commits that have already been applied to the current branch. If you know the commit hash, or are looking for a tagged commit, you can also use the Go to Hash / Branch / Tag action (press Ctrl0F in the Log tab of the Git tool window Alt09, or click on the toolbar).

4. In the Commit details pane on the right, select the files containing the changes you want to apply to the target branch and select Cherry-Pick Selected Changes from the context menu.

5. In the dialog that opens, select an existing changelist or enter the name for a new changelist and click OK.

6. Commit the changes and then push them to the target branch.

1. Switch to the branch to which the changes will be applied.

2. In the Branches popup (main menu Git | Branches) or in the Branches pane of the Git tool window, select the branch that contains the file you want to apply and choose Show Diff with Working Tree from the context menu.

   The Changes tool window that opens shows a list of all files that are different in the selected branch compared with the branch that is currently checked out:

   

   • Files that exist in the selected branch and are missing in the current branch are marked with grey.

   • Files that exist in the current branch but are missing in the selected branch are marked with green.

   • Files that contain differences between the selected and the current branch are marked with blue.

   You can click the Swap Branches link to change which branch is considered as a base against which you are comparing the other branch.

3. Select the file that you want to apply to the current branch, and choose Get from Branch from the context menu or click on the toolbar .

4. Commit and push the changes. IntelliJ IDEA will copy the entire contents of the file to the current branch.

note

You can also apply a file to another branch from the Project view: select the folder containing the file you want to copy, and choose Git | Compare with Branch | <branch_name> from the context menu, then click the Get icon on the toolbar.