error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout

Question

This question is similar to this one, but more specific.

I have a project with two branches: staging and beta. I develop on staging, and use the master branch to fix bugs. So if I'm working on staging and I see an error, I change to master branch:

git checkout master

and do the stuff:

git add fileToAdd
git commit -m "bug fixed"

and then I merge with both branches:

git checkout staging
git merge master
git checkout beta
git merge beta

And doesn't matter if there are other files on the working tree.

But now, when I try to change to the master branch, I'm getting an error:

error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout:
src/Pro/ConvocationBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can switch branches.
Aborting

I thought that I should remove the file from the staging area:

git reset HEAD src/Pro/ConvocationBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php

But I'm getting the same error. If I do git status, I get No changes to commit

Answer 1

Your error appears when you have modified a file and the branch that you are switching to has changes for this file too (from latest merge point).

Your options, as I see it, are

• commit, and then amend this commit with extra changes (you can modify commits in git, as long as they're not pushed); or
• use stash:

    git stash save your-file-name
    git checkout master
    # do whatever you had to do with master
    git checkout staging
    git stash pop

git stash save will create stash that contains your changes, but it isn't associated with any commit or even branch. git stash pop will apply latest stash entry to your current branch, restoring saved changes and removing it from stash.

Answer 2

Warning: Running this will discard local changes. Only run this if you want to discard local changes.

I encountered the same problem and solved it by

git checkout -f branch

and its specification is rather clear.

-f, --force

When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the working tree differs from HEAD. This is used to throw away local changes.

When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.

Answer 3

You can force checkout your branch, if you do not want to commit your local changes.

git checkout -f branch_name

Answer 4

I encountered the same problem and solved it by

git checkout -f branch

Well, be careful with the -f switch. You will lose any uncommitted changes if you use the -f switch. While there may be some use cases where it is helpful to use -f, in most cases, you may want to stash your changes and then switch branches. The stashing procedure is explained above.

Answer 5

This error happens when the branch you are switching to, has changes that your current branch doesn't have.

If you are seeing this error when you try to switch to a new branch, then your current branch is probably behind one or more commits. If so, run:

git fetch

You should also remove dependencies which may also conflict with the destination branch.

For example, for iOS developers:

pod deintegrate

then try checking out a branch again.

If the desired branch isn't new you can either cherry pick a commit and fix the conflicts or stash the changes and then fix the conflicts.

1. Git Stash (recommended)

git stash
git checkout <desiredBranch>
git stash apply

2. Cherry pick (more work)

git add <your file>
git commit -m "Your message"
git log

Copy the sha of your commit. Then discard unwanted changes:

git checkout .
git checkout -- . 
git clean -f -fd -fx

Make sure your branch is up to date:

git fetch

Then checkout to the desired branch

git checkout <desiredBranch>

Then cherry pick the other commit:

git cherry-pick <theSha>

Now fix the conflict.

3. Otherwise, your other option is to abandon your current branches changes with:

git checkout -f branch

Answer 6

i had got the same error. Actually i tried to override the flutter Old SDK Package with new Updated Package. so that error occurred.

i opened flutter sdk directory with VS Code and cleaned the project

use this code in VSCode cmd

git clean -dxf

then use git pull

Answer 7

The explanation in the accepted answer from Keltar is very good (and I have upvoted it), but I want to give a different answer because I do not think it is accurate. What git considers is not really if there are changes on the modified files on the target branch / commit since last merge-point. It's all dependent on if the modified files are the same between HEAD and the target commit. If the files are the same, git has no problem checking out and keeping the files as you have them in the working tree. If, however, at least a modified file is not the same between HEAD and the target commit / branch then git refuses to checkout because it would require a merge to be able to move to that place. Which, somebody might say, is the same as what it says in the accepted answer, right? Well, not really. A file can be the same (content) and still have commits in the target branch history under many different circumstances... like:

• There was a commit and then a revert on the file on the target branch history.
• The same change is applied on both histories.

And that is without considering cases like moving backward/forward in history. So, remember: HEAD vs target commit.

Answer 8

You can commit in the current branch, checkout to another branch, and finally cherry-pick that commit (in lieu of merge).

Answer 9

İf you guys are using taskrunner, you should stop it, make the git changes and then run the tasrunnner again. Otherwise, the taskrunner watches and changes the tracking files which you are changing with git comments.

Answer 10

In my case, it was something different.

I've created a commit and push it, later I did git update-index --assume-unchanged <file> and edited the content to use in local but when I want to checkout to another branch git prompts me this error.

My solution was undo the local change and checkout to branch needed and do the local change there.