git pull force Explained [Easy Examples]

What is git pull force - Overview

A git pull force procedure enables an update to a local repository with remote content even when you have pending commits. This is different from what a default git pull process does as it only allows the pull of remote data to a clean local repository without untracked commits. In case there are pending commits founds during a pull operation git will alert you to commit them before the merge is complete.

To forcefully pull remote commits to overwrite the local commits you will run the git reset --hard command to the specific branch but this has dire consequences.  You will lose all your local commits unless you back them up using git stash.  Git stash will save your local changes to be later accessed after a force pull from the remote repository.

In this tutorial git pull force, we will learn how to run git pull force with its repercussions and practising a safe force pull using examples.

git pull force workflow

1. Force overwrite untracked or committed changes from local repository

##  Switch to your branch (if not already there)
git checkout mybranch

##  Verify your current branch
git branch

## Backup your branch (optional)
git branch backup-mybranch

## Fetch refs and tags from remote repository
git fetch origin mybranch

## Reset HEAD position to fetched reference
git reset --hard origin/mybranch

## Delete any untracked files and directories
git clean -f -d

## Perform git pull to make sure there are no more issues
git pull

## Delete backup branch
git branch -d mybranch

2. Save local repository changes and perform git pull force

##  Switch to your branch (if not already there)
git checkout mybranch

##  Verify your current branch
git branch

## Backup your branch (optional)
git branch backup-mybranch

## Stash your local repository changes. Changes must be un-tracked (i.e. not committed)
git stash

## Verify your stashed list
git stash list

## Fetch refs and tags from remote repository
git fetch origin mybranch

## Reset HEAD position to fetched reference
git reset --hard origin/mybranch

## Perform git pull to make sure there are no more issues
git pull

## Bring back the stashed changes
git stash pop

## Check the status
git status 

## Delete backup branch
git branch -d mybranch

Performing git pull force in difference scenarios

We have a situation where in our team in a project. User deepak and alisha somehow end up modifying the same file. Now alisha was quick enough to push her changes to remote repository but deepak somehow realised that he has not pulled the latest changes from remote repo in quiet some time.

In this case, they both are working on git-example project under dev branch.

Example-1: git force pull to overwrite untracked changes from local repository

In this section we will demonstrate a scenario when the operator wants to overwrite his or his untracked changes from the local repository and perform git pull force:

Lab Environment

Here is a brief information about how our lab environment is setup. User alisha has push changes as part of 4da8c06 commit ID:

alisha@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git log --oneline
4da8c06 (HEAD -> dev, origin/dev) Two
d7b6c56 One
009bcfd (origin/main, origin/HEAD, main) Initial commit

While user deepak has the following commit history:

In the mean while deepak also has some un-committed changes in his local repository:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git status

Sample Output:

Since the same file was also modified by Alisha with 4da8c06 commit ID, hence the pull operation fails:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git pull origin dev
remote: Enumerating objects: 5, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), 260 bytes | 260.00 KiB/s, done.
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
   d7b6c56..4da8c06  dev        -> origin/dev
Updating d7b6c56..4da8c06
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
        file1
Please commit your changes or stash them before you merge.
Aborting

In this situation we will assume that, deepak wants to overwrite the local changes which he has not yet committed. Follow the below steps to perform a git pull force:

Step-1: Perform git fetch

As we have already covered in previous articles git pull performs git fetch + git merge which is the cause for such problems in most cases. So we can only perform git fetch first which will pull all the remote repo changes but it will NOT merge them to the local repository.

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git fetch origin dev
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD

As you can see from the commit history, as expected we don't have commit changes from alisha here as they were only fetched but not merged:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git log --oneline

Sample Output:

At this stage our uncommitted changes are still available:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git status

Sample Output:

Step-2: Backup your branch

This is an optional step and we are doing this just to have a failsafe in case something goes wrong and we don't want to loose our files.

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch backup-dev

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch
  backup-dev
* dev
  main

Step-3: Reset your local repository

Next we will reset the HEAD of our local repository to point at the HEAD of latest change from alisha. This step will delete all the untracked changes from your local repository:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git reset --hard origin/dev
HEAD is now at 4da8c06 Two

Check the commit history:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git log --oneline

Sample Output:

As expected, now we can see the change from alisha in the commit history. The git reset command has also cleaned up our local repository:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git status
On branch dev

Step-4: Perform git pull

This step is actually not required, but just to be sure if this command works now:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git pull origin dev
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up to date.

So we get a message that our local repo is already up to date with remote repository. This means that our git pull force has worked and we have successfully overwritten our local repo changes.

Step-5: Delete backup branch

Now that the pull operation is working properly. We don't need the backup branch which we created earlier and can be deleted:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch -d backup-dev
Deleted branch backup-dev (was d7b6c56).

Example-2: git force pull to overwrite committed changes from local repository

In this section we will demonstrate a scenario when the operator wants to overwrite his or his committed changes from the local repository and perform git pull force:

Lab Environment

Here is a brief information about how our lab environment is setup. User alisha has push changes as part of 84ae032 commit ID:

alisha@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git log --oneline

Sample Output:

While user deepak has the following commit history:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git log --oneline

Sample Output:

User deepak has also committed some changes into file1 which he is planning to push to remote repo:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git commit -m "Deepak-Three" -a
[dev 414886c] Deepak-Three
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

 deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git status
On branch dev
nothing to commit, working tree clean

But before doing a push, he plans to pull the remote repository changes:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git pull origin dev
remote: Enumerating objects: 5, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), 261 bytes | 261.00 KiB/s, done.
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
   4da8c06..84ae032  dev        -> origin/dev
Auto-merging file1
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in file1
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.

The git pull operation has failed, as alisha has also modified the same file so we see a merge conflict.

You can get more details about the merge conflict from file1 (source file):

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ cat file1
Deepak-1
Alisha-1
<<<<<<< HEAD
Deepak-2
=======
Alisha-2
>>>>>>> 84ae032de0f2beee576b5490034e92a4096912c6

Follow the below steps to overcome this situation by overwriting the files from local repository.

Step-1: Perform fetch operation

We will repeat the same steps as used in Scenario-1. We know that fetch operation will only fetch the remote refs and tags but it will not merge them. Although this step can be ignored because we already attempted git pull in the previous section which has also performed git fetch.

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git fetch origin dev
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD

Since the branch changes were already fetched, so we get a blank output.

Step-2: Backup your active branch

This is again optional but recommended. Backup your branch as a failsafe to avoid any unforeseen situations.

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch backup-dev

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch

Sample Output:

Step-3: Reset your local repository

Next we will reset our local repository to overwrite any commited or untracked changes and perform git pull force:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git reset --hard origin/dev
HEAD is now at 84ae032 Three

The reset operation was successful. Verify the commit history:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git log --oneline

Sample Output:

You can also check file1 content to make sure it doesn't contain any merge conflict related data:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ cat file1
Deepak-1
Alisha-1
Alisha-2

Step-4: Perform git pull

This step is optional, just to be sure that our previous steps were successful.

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git pull origin dev
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up to date.

Since we have already fetched everything, so nothing more to pull from remote repo.

Step-5: Delete backup branch

Once the git pull force operation is successful, we can safely delete the backup-dev branch:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch -d backup-dev
error: The branch 'backup-dev' is not fully merged.
If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D backup-dev'.

As you can see, we get an error while deleting the backup-dev branch. If you recall, we had some uncommitted changes when we had backed up our branch so we are getting this warning.

Anyhow we don't want to keep those changes so we will forcefully delete the backup branch:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch -D backup-dev
deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git branch

Sample Output:

Example-3: Save untracked changes and perform git force pull

In this scenario we will save untracked changes from local repository and then perform git pull force.

Alisha has committed some changes into file1 using 5328aa8 commit ID and pushed to remote repo. On the other side, user deepak is also working on the same file in his branch.

But once he tries to pull the remote repo changes, he gets below error:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git pull origin dev
error: cannot pull with rebase: You have unstaged changes.
error: please commit or stash them.

This is because he has some untracked changes in his local repository:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git status
On branch dev
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add ..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore ..." to discard changes in working directory)
        modified:   file2

To make sure the changes from this file is not overwritten, he decides to save it using git stash:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git stash
Saved working directory and index state WIP on dev: 5328aa8 Six

Check the list of stashed changes:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git stash list
stash@{0}: WIP on dev: 5328aa8 Six

Now deepak can easily perform git pull operation:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git pull origin dev
remote: Enumerating objects: 5, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), 270 bytes | 270.00 KiB/s, done.
From gitlab.com:golinuxcloud/git-example
 * branch            dev        -> FETCH_HEAD
   4a708ca..5328aa8  dev        -> origin/dev
Updating 4a708ca..5328aa8
Fast-forward
 file1 | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

Once git pull is successful, deepak can pop the stashed changes and then start working on them again:

deepak@ubuntu:~/git-example$ git stash pop
On branch dev
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged ..." to unstage)
        new file:   file2

Dropped refs/stash@{0} (b93e4ce5c347a5bddb761be6d62e17b01e486584)

git pull vs git pull force

Summary

To sum up, you will discover that git doesn’t have a git pull force command apart from the default git pull command. To facilitate git pull force you have to combine several other git functions with include git fetch, git reset hard and git stash. A git pull force process is simply a modification of the git fetch function.

Further Reading

git-pull-force