Undo a commit & redo
$ git commit -m "Something terribly misguided" # (0: Your Accident)
$ git reset HEAD~ # (1)
# === If you just want to undo the commit, stop here! ===
[ edit files as necessary ] # (2)
$ git add . # (3)
$ git commit -c ORIG_HEAD # (4)
git resetis the command responsible for the undo. It will undo your last commit while leaving your working tree (the state of your files on disk) untouched. You'll need to add them again before you can commit them again.- Make corrections to working tree files.
git addanything that you want to include in your new commit.- Commit the changes, reusing the old commit message.
resetcopied the old head to.git/ORIG_HEAD;commitwith-c ORIG_HEADwill open an editor, which initially contains the log message from the old commit and allows you to edit it. If you do not need to edit the message, you could use the-Coption.
Alternatively, to edit the previous commit (or just its commit message), commit --amend will add changes within the current index to the previous commit.
To remove (not revert) a commit that has been pushed to the server, rewriting history with git push origin main --force[-with-lease] is necessary. It's almost always a bad idea to use --force; prefer --force-with-lease instead, and as noted in the git manual:
You should understand the implications of rewriting history if you amend a commit that has already been published.
Further Reading
You can use git reflog to determine the SHA-1 for the commit to which you wish to revert. Once you have this value, use the sequence of commands as explained above.
HEAD~ is the same as HEAD~1. The article What is the HEAD in git? is helpful if you want to uncommit multiple commits.
Undo a commit & redo
$ git commit -m "Something terribly misguided" # (0: Your Accident)
$ git reset HEAD~ # (1)
# === If you just want to undo the commit, stop here! ===
[ edit files as necessary ] # (2)
$ git add . # (3)
$ git commit -c ORIG_HEAD # (4)
git resetis the command responsible for the undo. It will undo your last commit while leaving your working tree (the state of your files on disk) untouched. You'll need to add them again before you can commit them again.- Make corrections to working tree files.
git addanything that you want to include in your new commit.- Commit the changes, reusing the old commit message.
resetcopied the old head to.git/ORIG_HEAD;commitwith-c ORIG_HEADwill open an editor, which initially contains the log message from the old commit and allows you to edit it. If you do not need to edit the message, you could use the-Coption.
Alternatively, to edit the previous commit (or just its commit message), commit --amend will add changes within the current index to the previous commit.
To remove (not revert) a commit that has been pushed to the server, rewriting history with git push origin main --force[-with-lease] is necessary. It's almost always a bad idea to use --force; prefer --force-with-lease instead, and as noted in the git manual:
You should understand the implications of rewriting history if you amend a commit that has already been published.
Further Reading
You can use git reflog to determine the SHA-1 for the commit to which you wish to revert. Once you have this value, use the sequence of commands as explained above.
HEAD~ is the same as HEAD~1. The article What is the HEAD in git? is helpful if you want to uncommit multiple commits.
Undoing a commit is a little scary if you don't know how it works. But it's actually amazingly easy if you do understand. I'll show you the 4 different ways you can undo a commit.
Say you have this, where C is your HEAD and (F) is the state of your files.
(F)
A-B-C
↑
master
Option 1: git reset --hard
You want to destroy commit C and also throw away any uncommitted changes. You do this:
git reset --hard HEAD~1
The result is:
(F)
A-B
↑
master
Now B is the HEAD. Because you used --hard, your files are reset to their state at commit B.
Option 2: git reset
Maybe commit C wasn't a disaster, but just a bit off. You want to undo the commit but keep your changes for a bit of editing before you do a better commit. Starting again from here, with C as your HEAD:
(F)
A-B-C
↑
master
Do this, leaving off the --hard:
git reset HEAD~1
In this case the result is:
(F)
A-B-C
↑
master
In both cases, HEAD is just a pointer to the latest commit. When you do a git reset HEAD~1, you tell Git to move the HEAD pointer back one commit. But (unless you use --hard) you leave your files as they were. So now git status shows the changes you had checked into C. You haven't lost a thing!
Option 3: git reset --soft
For the lightest touch, you can even undo your commit but leave your files and your index:
git reset --soft HEAD~1
This not only leaves your files alone, it even leaves your index alone. When you do git status, you'll see that the same files are in the index as before. In fact, right after this command, you could do git commit and you'd be redoing the same commit you just had.
Option 4: you did git reset --hard and need to get that code back
One more thing: Suppose you destroy a commit as in the first example, but then discover you needed it after all? Tough luck, right?
Nope, there's still a way to get it back. Type this
git reflog
and you'll see a list of (partial) commit SHAs (that is, hashes) that you've moved around in. Find the commit you destroyed, and do this:
git checkout -b someNewBranchName shaYouDestroyed
You've now resurrected that commit. Commits don't actually get destroyed in Git for some 90 days, so you can usually go back and rescue one you didn't mean to get rid of.
Videos
Sorry for the noob question but all the google answers are spread out over 10 years and totally different answers. I can't find a common consensus on this and don't want to screw anything up.
I just need to go back to my last commit. I committed and everything was fine but recent code changes broke the site and I need to go back to when things were working.
It says in the terminal:
(use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
This is what I'm looking for right? If I do "git restore <file>" it will discard all my changes and go back to what the file was like before I made the breaking changes?
Also, if so, I have a lot of files to change, if I just do "git restore" without a specified file will it restore ALL the files that have been modified so I don't have to go one by one?
Git commit only saves it to the stage, which is locally on your computer. Use Push to update it to a remote server (Like github).
Use git revert <ID> to revert back to a previous commit. each commit has an identifying code.
See here for more details on revert
The above answer is not quite correct - git revert <ID> does not set your repository to that commit -- git revert <ID> creates a new commit that undoes the changes introduced by commit <ID>. It's more or less a way to 'undo' a commit and save that undo in your history as a new commit.
If you want to set your branch to the state of a particular commit (as implied by the OP), you can use git reset <commit>, or git reset --hard <commit> The first option only updates the INDEX, leaving files in your working directory unchanged as if you had made the edits but not yet committed them. With the --hard option, it replaces the contents of your working directory with what was on <commit>.
A note of warning that git reset will alter history -- if I made several commits and then reset to the first commit, the subsequent commits will no longer be in the commit history. This can cause some serious headaches if any of those lost commits have been pushed to a public repository. Make sure you only use it to get rid of commits that haven't been pushed to another repository!