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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | BUNDLE FORMAT | OPTIONS | SPECIFYING REFERENCES | OBJECT PREREQUISITES | EXAMPLES | DISCUSSION | FILE FORMAT | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-BUNDLE(1) Git Manual GIT-BUNDLE(1)
git-bundle - Move objects and refs by archive
git bundle create [-q | --quiet | --progress]
[--version=<version>] <file> <git-rev-list-args>
git bundle verify [-q | --quiet] <file>
git bundle list-heads <file> [<refname>...]
git bundle unbundle [--progress] <file> [<refname>...]
Create, unpack, and manipulate "bundle" files. Bundles are used
for the "offline" transfer of Git objects without an active
"server" sitting on the other side of the network connection.
They can be used to create both incremental and full backups of a
repository (see the "full backup" example in "EXAMPLES"), and to
relay the state of the references in one repository to another
(see the second example).
Git commands that fetch or otherwise "read" via protocols such as
ssh:// and https:// can also operate on bundle files. It is
possible git-clone(1) a new repository from a bundle, to use
git-fetch(1) to fetch from one, and to list the references
contained within it with git-ls-remote(1). There’s no
corresponding "write" support, i.e. a git push into a bundle is
not supported.
Bundles are .pack files (see git-pack-objects(1)) with a header
indicating what references are contained within the bundle.
Like the packed archive format itself bundles can either be
self-contained, or be created using exclusions. See the "OBJECT
PREREQUISITES" section below.
Bundles created using revision exclusions are "thin packs" created
using the --thin option to git-pack-objects(1), and unbundled
using the --fix-thin option to git-index-pack(1).
There is no option to create a "thick pack" when using revision
exclusions, and users should not be concerned about the
difference. By using "thin packs", bundles created using
exclusions are smaller in size. That they’re "thin" under the hood
is merely noted here as a curiosity, and as a reference to other
documentation.
See gitformat-bundle(5) for more details and the discussion of
"thin pack" in gitformat-pack(5) for further details.
create [options] <file> <git-rev-list-args>
Used to create a bundle named file. This requires the
<git-rev-list-args> arguments to define the bundle contents.
options contains the options specific to the git bundle create
subcommand. If file is -, the bundle is written to stdout.
verify <file>
Used to check that a bundle file is valid and will apply
cleanly to the current repository. This includes checks on the
bundle format itself as well as checking that the prerequisite
commits exist and are fully linked in the current repository.
Then, git bundle prints a list of missing commits, if any.
Finally, information about additional capabilities, such as
"object filter", is printed. See "Capabilities" in
gitformat-bundle(5) for more information. The exit code is
zero for success, but will be nonzero if the bundle file is
invalid. If file is -, the bundle is read from stdin.
list-heads <file>
Lists the references defined in the bundle. If followed by a
list of references, only references matching those given are
printed out. If file is -, the bundle is read from stdin.
unbundle <file>
Passes the objects in the bundle to git index-pack for storage
in the repository, then prints the names of all defined
references. If a list of references is given, only references
matching those in the list are printed. This command is really
plumbing, intended to be called only by git fetch. If file is
-, the bundle is read from stdin.
<git-rev-list-args>
A list of arguments, acceptable to git rev-parse and git
rev-list (and containing a named ref, see SPECIFYING
REFERENCES below), that specifies the specific objects and
references to transport. For example, master~10..master causes
the current master reference to be packaged along with all
objects added since its 10th ancestor commit. There is no
explicit limit to the number of references and objects that
may be packaged.
[<refname>...]
A list of references used to limit the references reported as
available. This is principally of use to git fetch, which
expects to receive only those references asked for and not
necessarily everything in the pack (in this case, git bundle
acts like git fetch-pack).
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by
default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is
specified. This flag forces progress status even if the
standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.
--version=<version>
Specify the bundle version. Version 2 is the older format and
can only be used with SHA-1 repositories; the newer version 3
contains capabilities that permit extensions. The default is
the oldest supported format, based on the hash algorithm in
use.
-q, --quiet
This flag makes the command not to report its progress on the
standard error stream.
Revisions must be accompanied by reference names to be packaged in
a bundle. Alternatively --all can be used to package all refs.
More than one reference may be packaged, and more than one set of
prerequisite objects can be specified. The objects packaged are
those not contained in the union of the prerequisites.
The git bundle create command resolves the reference names for you
using the same rules as git rev-parse --abbrev-ref=loose. Each
prerequisite can be specified explicitly (e.g. ^master~10), or
implicitly (e.g. master~10..master, --since=10.days.ago master).
All of these simple cases are OK (assuming we have a "master" and
"next" branch):
$ git bundle create master.bundle master
$ echo master | git bundle create master.bundle --stdin
$ git bundle create master-and-next.bundle master next
$ (echo master; echo next) | git bundle create master-and-next.bundle --stdin
And so are these (and the same but omitted --stdin examples):
$ git bundle create recent-master.bundle master~10..master
$ git bundle create recent-updates.bundle master~10..master next~5..next
A revision name or a range whose right-hand-side cannot be
resolved to a reference is not accepted:
$ git bundle create HEAD.bundle $(git rev-parse HEAD)
fatal: Refusing to create empty bundle.
$ git bundle create master-yesterday.bundle master~10..master~5
fatal: Refusing to create empty bundle.
When creating bundles it is possible to create a self-contained
bundle that can be unbundled in a repository with no common
history, as well as providing negative revisions to exclude
objects needed in the earlier parts of the history.
Feeding a revision such as new to git bundle create will create a
bundle file that contains all the objects reachable from the
revision new. That bundle can be unbundled in any repository to
obtain a full history that leads to the revision new:
$ git bundle create full.bundle new
A revision range such as old..new will produce a bundle file that
will require the revision old (and any objects reachable from it)
to exist for the bundle to be "unbundle"-able:
$ git bundle create full.bundle old..new
A self-contained bundle without any prerequisites can be extracted
into anywhere, even into an empty repository, or be cloned from
(i.e., new, but not old..new).
It is okay to err on the side of caution, causing the bundle file
to contain objects already in the destination, as these are
ignored when unpacking at the destination.
If you want to provide the same set of refs that a clone directly
from the source repository would get, use --branches --tags for
the <git-rev-list-args>.
The git bundle verify command can be used to check whether your
recipient repository has the required prerequisite commits for a
bundle.
We’ll discuss two cases:
1. Taking a full backup of a repository
2. Transferring the history of a repository to another machine
when the two machines have no direct connection
First let’s consider a full backup of the repository. The
following command will take a full backup of the repository in the
sense that all refs are included in the bundle:
$ git bundle create backup.bundle --all
But note again that this is only for the refs, i.e. you will only
include refs and commits reachable from those refs. You will not
include other local state, such as the contents of the index,
working tree, the stash, per-repository configuration, hooks, etc.
You can later recover that repository by using for example
git-clone(1):
$ git clone backup.bundle <new directory>
For the next example, assume you want to transfer the history from
a repository R1 on machine A to another repository R2 on machine
B. For whatever reason, direct connection between A and B is not
allowed, but we can move data from A to B via some mechanism (CD,
email, etc.). We want to update R2 with development made on the
branch master in R1.
To bootstrap the process, you can first create a bundle that does
not have any prerequisites. You can use a tag to remember up to
what commit you last processed, in order to make it easy to later
update the other repository with an incremental bundle:
machineA$ cd R1
machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle master
machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master
Then you transfer file.bundle to the target machine B. Because
this bundle does not require any existing object to be extracted,
you can create a new repository on machine B by cloning from it:
machineB$ git clone -b master /home/me/tmp/file.bundle R2
This will define a remote called "origin" in the resulting
repository that lets you fetch and pull from the bundle. The
$GIT_DIR/config file in R2 will have an entry like this:
[remote "origin"]
url = /home/me/tmp/file.bundle
fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
To update the resulting mine.git repository, you can fetch or pull
after replacing the bundle stored at /home/me/tmp/file.bundle with
incremental updates.
After working some more in the original repository, you can create
an incremental bundle to update the other repository:
machineA$ cd R1
machineA$ git bundle create file.bundle lastR2bundle..master
machineA$ git tag -f lastR2bundle master
You then transfer the bundle to the other machine to replace
/home/me/tmp/file.bundle, and pull from it.
machineB$ cd R2
machineB$ git pull
If you know up to what commit the intended recipient repository
should have the necessary objects, you can use that knowledge to
specify the prerequisites, giving a cut-off point to limit the
revisions and objects that go in the resulting bundle. The
previous example used the lastR2bundle tag for this purpose, but
you can use any other options that you would give to the
git-log(1) command. Here are more examples:
You can use a tag that is present in both:
$ git bundle create mybundle v1.0.0..master
You can use a prerequisite based on time:
$ git bundle create mybundle --since=10.days master
You can use the number of commits:
$ git bundle create mybundle -10 master
You can run git-bundle verify to see if you can extract from a
bundle that was created with a prerequisite:
$ git bundle verify mybundle
This will list what commits you must have in order to extract from
the bundle and will error out if you do not have them.
A bundle from a recipient repository’s point of view is just like
a regular repository which it fetches or pulls from. You can, for
example, map references when fetching:
$ git fetch mybundle master:localRef
You can also see what references it offers:
$ git ls-remote mybundle
A naive way to make a full backup of a repository is to use
something to the effect of cp -r <repo> <destination>. This is
discouraged since the repository could be written to during the
copy operation. In turn some files at <destination> could be
corrupted.
This is why it is recommended to use Git tooling for making
repository backups, either with this command or with e.g.
git-clone(1). But keep in mind that these tools will not help you
backup state other than refs and commits. In other words they will
not help you backup contents of the index, working tree, the
stash, per-repository configuration, hooks, etc.
See also gitfaq(7), section "TRANSFERS" for a discussion of the
problems associated with file syncing across systems.
See gitformat-bundle(5).
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-BUNDLE(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-source(1), git(1), git-clone(1), git-fast-export(1), git-fetch(1), git-pack-objects(1), git-pull(1), git-push(1), gitformat-bundle(5), gitprotocol-v2(5)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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