How can I move a working branch from a repo to separate repository on its own?

Question

I have been working a branch created long back in a repository. This has grown so big that it may never get merged to the trunk.  For better maintenance I want to covert this branch to a new repository but carrying the history so far.

Please advice how this could be achieved using Source Tree or even git command line.

Thanks in advance

Seetharama Sureshbabu · Answer

The suggestion didn't work out.

However I figured out a windy route to transfer the branch. This work fine for me on Windows (used Source tree and TortoiseGit to simplify some of the actions but given the equivalent commands here); should be ok on linux too.  Good luck.

AIM: Create a new repo called NewRepo from the branch MyRepo/MyBranch

1. Clone the work branch (e.g., MyBranch) from the work repo (MyRepo) to the local drive (c:\MyBranch)
2. Create an empty repo (e.g. NewRepo) in Bitbucket
3. In c:\MyBranch, reinitialise the git repo with the command: "git init"
4. In c:\MyBranch, change its remote URL to that of NewRepo with the command: "git remote set-url origin https://ACCOUNT_NAME@bitbucket.org/WORK_SPACE/NewRepo.git"
5. In c:\MyBranch, push MyBranch repo to NewRepo/MyBranch with the command: "git push https://ACCOUNT_NAME@bitbucket.org/WORK_SPACE/NewRepo.git MyBranch:MyBranch"
This will create a new branch called MyBranch in the remote repo NewRepo and push the files, folders and history from c:\MyBranch to NewRepo/MyBranch
6. Merge NewRepo/MyBranch to master. Remove the branch NewRepo/MyBranch if necessary

git.exe merge --allow-unrelated-histories remotes/origin/branch4
git.exe push --progress "origin" master:master

7. Now NewRepo will contain all the files, folders and history of MyRepo/MyBranch

Seetharama Sureshbabu · Answer

My concern is not to corrupt the current repo as it contains few more active branches.

Let me try with a test repo first.

Joakim Wallman · Answer

I'm having a similar issue. I plan to use git filter-repo, but run into some issues, maybe we can solve them together. Note that git filter-repo will rewrite history, so I will copy it to a new repo. Please read the documentation! You can install git-filter-repo using python3 pip3: pip3 install git-filter-repo I only got it working under linux, where you might want to use sudo to get the correct install path. then you need a fresh clone of your repository: git clone --bare --mirror bare will only checkout the .git folder, and mirror will include all references. git filter-repo --path --invert-paths Will remove the selected folder / files. Create a new empty repo on bitbucket. git remote add origin git push --mirror After this it should be done, but bitbucket lists my repo size as a few kB and it fails to list branches.