Bitbucket - How can I rename a branch that has already been merged?

[Jamie Maiquez]

The wrong Jira Key is in the branch name and now it is linked to the wrong Jira. The branch has already been merged into main. Is there a way to rename that branch so that the Jira is referring to the correct branch?

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi Jamie,

Yes, this is possible.

Assuming that the branch is named TEST-16-branch and you want to rename it to TEST-17-branch, you can do the following:

1. Clone the Bitbucket repository

2. Navigate to the directory of the clone, and checkout TEST-16-branch with the command:

git checkout TEST-16-branch

3. Rename the branch with the command:

git branch -m TEST-17-branch

4. Push the renamed branch to the Bitbucket repo:

git push origin TEST-17-branch

5. Delete the remote branch TEST-16-branch:

git push origin --delete TEST-16-branch

The renamed branch TEST-17-branch should now be referenced in the Jira issue TEST-17, and the deleted branch TEST-16-branch should no longer be referenced in the Jira issue TEST-16.

Please feel free to let me know how it goes and if you have any questions!

Kind regards,
Theodora