Renaming A Git Branch

You can rename a branch with

git branch -m <old branch name> <new branch name>

If you are already on the branch you wish to rename, you can skip the first argument.

git branch -m <new branch name>

In both cases, -m is shorthand for --move.

Renaming a remote branch

Unfortunately, 🙁 there is no direct way to rename a remote branch. As a work around, you can delete the remote branch and then push the new renamed local branch to your repository.

Assuming you've already renamed your local branch, you can do so in one fell swoop.

git push origin :<old branch name> <new branch name>

After that, you will need to reset the upstream branch,

git push origin –u <new branch name>

where -u is shorthand for --set-upstream.