What’s the difference between “git reset” and “git checkout”?

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  • git reset is specifically about updating the index, moving the HEAD.
  • git checkout is about updating the working tree (to the index or the specified tree). It will update the HEAD only if you checkout a branch (if not, you end up with a detached HEAD).
    (actually, with Git 2.23 Q3 2019, this will be git restore, not necessarily git checkout)

By comparison, since svn has no index, only a working tree, svn checkout will copy a given revision on a separate directory.
The closer equivalent for git checkout would:

  • svn update (if you are in the same branch, meaning the same SVN URL)
  • svn switch (if you checkout for instance the same branch, but from another SVN repo URL)

All those three working tree modifications (svn checkout, update, switch) have only one command in git: git checkout.
But since git has also the notion of index (that “staging area” between the repo and the working tree), you also have git reset.

Thinkeye mentions in the comments the article “Reset Demystified “.

For instance, if we have two branches, ‘master‘ and ‘develop‘ pointing at different commits, and we’re currently on ‘develop‘ (so HEAD points to it) and we run git reset master, ‘develop‘ itself will now point to the same commit that ‘master‘ does.

On the other hand, if we instead run git checkout master, ‘develop‘ will not move, HEAD itself will. HEAD will now point to ‘master‘.

So, in both cases we’re moving HEAD to point to commit A, but how we do so is very different. reset will move the branch HEAD points to, checkout moves HEAD itself to point to another branch.

http://git-scm.com/images/reset/reset-checkout.png

On those points, though:

LarsH adds in the comments:

The first paragraph of this answer, though, is misleading: “git checkout … will update the HEAD only if you checkout a branch (if not, you end up with a detached HEAD)”.
Not true: git checkout will update the HEAD even if you checkout a commit that’s not a branch (and yes, you end up with a detached HEAD, but it still got updated).

git checkout a839e8f updates HEAD to point to commit a839e8f.

De Novo concurs in the comments:

@LarsH is correct.
The second bullet has a misconception about what HEAD is in will update the HEAD only if you checkout a branch.
HEAD goes wherever you are, like a shadow.
Checking out some non-branch ref (e.g., a tag), or a commit directly, will move HEAD. Detached head doesn’t mean you’ve detached from the HEAD, it means the head is detached from a branch ref, which you can see from, e.g., git log --pretty=format:"%d" -1.

  • Attached head states will start with (HEAD ->,
  • detached will still show (HEAD, but will not have an arrow to a branch ref.

More Related Contents:

  1. How do I revert a Git repository to a previous commit?
  2. How can I move HEAD back to a previous location? (Detached head) & Undo commits
  3. What’s the difference between Git Revert, Checkout and Reset?
  4. How do I check out a remote Git branch?
  5. How can I reset or revert a file to a specific revision?
  6. Delete commits from a branch in Git
  7. Move existing, uncommitted work to a new branch in Git
  8. Merge, update, and pull Git branches without using checkouts
  9. How can I get the latest tag name in current branch in Git?
  10. Undo git reset –hard with uncommitted files in the staging area
  11. Retrieve a single file from a repository
  12. Difference between git checkout –track origin/branch and git checkout -b branch origin/branch
  13. How do I use ‘git reset –hard HEAD’ to revert to a previous commit? [duplicate]
  14. What is git tag, How to create tags & How to checkout git remote tag(s)
  15. What is the `git restore` command and what is the difference between `git restore` and `git reset`?
  16. How do I reset or revert a file to a specific revision?
  17. How do I find and restore a deleted file in a Git repository?
  18. git undo all uncommitted or unsaved changes
  19. Why does Git tell me “Not currently on any branch” after I run “git checkout origin/”?
  20. Git checkout: updating paths is incompatible with switching branches
  21. What to do with commit made in a detached head
  22. What is the difference between “git branch” and “git checkout -b”?
  23. Switch Git branch without files checkout
  24. How to git reset –hard a subdirectory
  25. error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout
  26. Restore a deleted folder in a Git repo
  27. Why git can’t do hard/soft resets by path?
  28. Git push error: Unable to unlink old (Permission denied)
  29. What do git checkouts really mean?
  30. What’s the difference between git switch and git checkout

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