HEAD branch is behind master in SourceTree

[sloppysteven]

Somewhat new to source control and Sourcetree.I checked out a previous commit and it created a HEAD branch (that is not acting like a branch at all).

I want to go back to only having one branch (master). Please help!

[sloppysteven · Accepted solution]

so what I found is that I needed to create a branch from my "HEAD" branch (which isn't really a branch at all) using the new branch command. At that point head is gone! yay! Then I was able to merge that branch with master and delete the unwanted branch I had created from HEAD.

[stevestreeting]

You could also have checked out an existing branch, then used right-click on the latest commit and selected Reset <branch> to this commit to move the branch pointer to where you want it to be.

When HEAD is displayed, it means that you're on a detached HEAD, which means you have no branch checked out and any commits won't move any branches when they're made. If you checkout a detached HEAD in SourceTree, it will warn you fairly obviously, so maybe this was done on the command line beforehand and you saw the after effects in SourceTree.

[Neil R]

@edwon 's advice worked for me

@steve did not; when I cheked out an existing branch, I lost of my my changes on a detached HEAD (luckily did a backup beforewards).