Splitting a subfolder out into a new repository
You can turn a folder within a Git repository into a brand new repository.
Note
You need Git version 2.22.0 or later to follow these instructions, otherwisegit filter-repo
will not work.
If you create a new clone of the repository, you won't lose any of your Git history or changes when you split a folder into a separate repository. However, note that the new repository won't have the branches and tags of the original repository.
OpenTerminalTerminalGit Bash.
Change the current working directory to the location where you want to create your new repository.
Clone the repository that contains the subfolder.
git clone https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY-NAME
Change the current working directory to your cloned repository.
cd REPOSITORY-NAME
To filter out the subfolder from the rest of the files in the repository, install
git-filter-repo
, then rungit filter-repo
with the following arguments.FOLDER-NAME
: The folder within your project where you'd like to create a separate repository.
Tip
Windows users should use
/
to delimit folders.$git filter-repo --path FOLDER-NAME/#Filter the specified branchin your directory and remove empty commits
The repository should now only contain the files that were in your subfolder(s).
If you want one specific subfolder to be the new root folder of the new repository, you can use the following command:
$git filter-repo --subdirectory-filter FOLDER-NAME#Filter the specific branch by using a single sub-directory as the rootfor the new repository
Create a new repository on GitHub.
At the top of your new repository on GitHub's Quick Setup page, click to copy the remote repository URL.
Tip
For information on the difference between HTTPS and SSH URLs, seeAbout remote repositories.
Add a new remote name with the URL you copied for your repository. For example,
origin
orupstream
are two common choices.git remote add origin https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY-NAME.git
Verify that the remote URL was added with your new repository name.
$git remote -v#Verify new remote URL>origin https://github.com/USERNAME/NEW-REPOSITORY-NAME.git (fetch)>origin https://github.com/USERNAME/NEW-REPOSITORY-NAME.git (push)
Push your changes to the new repository on GitHub.
git push -u origin BRANCH-NAME