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Git Cherry-pick

Use the git cherry-pick command to apply changes from specific commits onto your current branch.

Cherry-pick a single commit

Section titled “Cherry-pick a single commit”

To cherry-pick a commit, you need to know its commit hash. You can find this by using the git log command or by looking at the commit history on GitHub.

Once you have the commit hash, you can cherry-pick it into your current branch with the following command:

Terminal window
git cherry-pick "<commit-hash>"

To cherry-pick changes from the commit, without creating the new commit automatically, you can use the -n (or --no-commit) option:

Terminal window
git cherry-pick -n "<commit-hash>"

Warning: It is recommended to avoid cherry-picking merge commits! When you cherry-pick a merge commit, Git will ask you to specify the parent and may not apply changes as you expect. See the git cherry-pick documentation for more details.

Resolving Conflicts

Section titled “Resolving Conflicts”

If you encounter conflicts during cherry-pick, Git will pause and mark the conflicted files. You can see which files need attention with:

Terminal window
git status

Edit the conflicted files in your preferred code editor to resolve the issues, then stage them and continue the cherry-pick process:

Terminal window
git add "<resolved-files>"
git cherry-pick --continue

If you want to cancel the cherry-pick process and return to the state before starting it, use:

Terminal window
git cherry-pick --abort

Cherry-pick multiple commits

Section titled “Cherry-pick multiple commits”

You can cherry-pick multiple commits by specifying their commit hashes one after another:

Terminal window
git cherry-pick "<commit-hash-1>" "<commit-hash-2>" "<commit-hash-3>"

You can cherry-pick a range of commits by specifying the start and end commit hashes, separated by two dots (..):

Terminal window
git cherry-pick "<start-commit-hash>"^.."<end-commit-hash>"

Using the caret (^) after the start commit hash includes the start commit in the range:

  • a..z includes commits after a (e.g. b) up to and including z.
  • a^..z includes commits from a up to and including z.

Reset author in cherry-pick

Section titled “Reset author in cherry-pick”

By itself, git cherry-pick preserves the author name and date from the original commit.

To reset the author and use your own name and current date as you would with a normal commit, you need to manually commit cherry-picked changes:

Terminal window
git cherry-pick -n "<commit-hash>"
git commit --no-edit --reset-author

To cherry-pick multiple commits without squashing them, repeat this process for each commit.

The following script automates this process for a range of commits:

  • It preserves each commit message but resets the author name and date
  • It stops if a conflict occurs, allowing the user to resolve it before continuing
#!/bin/sh
PICK_START_COMMIT='<start-commit-hash>'
PICK_END_COMMIT='<end-commit-hash>'
PICK_CONFLICT_MESSAGE="$(cat <<EOF
Please resolve the conflicts, add changes and run the following command to continue:
  git commit -C "\$PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT" --no-edit --reset-author
  for PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT in \$(git rev-list --reverse "\$PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT".."\$PICK_END_COMMIT"); do
    git cherry-pick -n "\$PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT"
    if [ \$? -ne 0 ]; then
      echo '' >&2
      echo "\$PICK_CONFLICT_MESSAGE" >&2
      break
    fi
    git commit -C "\$PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT" --no-edit --reset-author
  done
EOF
)"
for PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT in $(git rev-list --reverse "$PICK_START_COMMIT"^.."$PICK_END_COMMIT"); do
  git cherry-pick -n "$PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT"
  if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo '' >&2
    echo "$PICK_CONFLICT_MESSAGE" >&2
    break
  fi
  git commit -C "$PICK_CURRENT_COMMIT" --no-edit --reset-author
done