# phpman > man > git-fetch(1)

> **TLDR:** Download objects and refs from a remote repository.
>
- Fetch the latest changes from the default remote upstream repository (if set):
  `git fetch`
- Fetch new branches from a specific remote upstream repository:
  `git fetch {{remote_name}}`
- Fetch the latest changes from all remote upstream repositories:
  `git fetch --all`
- Also fetch tags from the remote upstream repository:
  `git fetch {{-t|--tags}}`
- Delete local references to remote branches that have been deleted upstream:
  `git fetch {{-p|--prune}}`
- Deepen current shallow branch by 2 commits:
  `git fetch --deepen 2`
- Update the `main` branch without switching to it (equivalent to `git pull`):
  `git fetch {{origin}} main:main`

*Source: tldr-pages*

---

[GIT-FETCH(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/GIT-FETCH/1/markdown)                                 Git Manual                                 [GIT-FETCH(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/GIT-FETCH/1/markdown)



## NAME
       git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository

## SYNOPSIS
       _git_ _fetch_ [<options>] [<repository> [<refspec>...]]
       _git_ _fetch_ [<options>] <group>
       _git_ _fetch_ --multiple [<options>] [(<repository> | <group>)...]
       _git_ _fetch_ --all [<options>]


## DESCRIPTION
       Fetch branches and/or tags (collectively, "refs") from one or more other repositories, along
       with the objects necessary to complete their histories. Remote-tracking branches are updated
       (see the description of <refspec> below for ways to control this behavior).

       By default, any tag that points into the histories being fetched is also fetched; the effect
       is to fetch tags that point at branches that you are interested in. This default behavior can
       be changed by using the --tags or --no-tags options or by configuring remote.<name>.tagOpt.
       By using a refspec that fetches tags explicitly, you can fetch tags that do not point into
       branches you are interested in as well.

       _git_ _fetch_ can fetch from either a single named repository or URL, or from several
       repositories at once if <group> is given and there is a remotes.<group> entry in the
       configuration file. (See [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown)).

       When no remote is specified, by default the **origin** remote will be used, unless there’s an
       upstream branch configured for the current branch.

       The names of refs that are fetched, together with the object names they point at, are written
       to **.git/FETCH**___**HEAD**. This information may be used by scripts or other git commands, such as
       [**git-pull**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-pull/1/markdown).

## OPTIONS
### --all
           Fetch all remotes.

### -a, --append
           Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing contents of
           **.git/FETCH**___**HEAD**. Without this option old data in **.git/FETCH**___**HEAD** will be overwritten.

### --atomic
           Use an atomic transaction to update local refs. Either all refs are updated, or on error,
           no refs are updated.

       --depth=<depth>
           Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of each remote branch
           history. If fetching to a _shallow_ repository created by **git** **clone** with **--depth=<depth>**
           option (see [**git-clone**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-clone/1/markdown)), deepen or shorten the history to the specified number of
           commits. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.

       --deepen=<depth>
           Similar to --depth, except it specifies the number of commits from the current shallow
           boundary instead of from the tip of each remote branch history.

       --shallow-since=<date>
           Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to include all reachable commits
           after <date>.

       --shallow-exclude=<revision>
           Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to exclude commits reachable from a
           specified remote branch or tag. This option can be specified multiple times.

### --unshallow
           If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow repository to a complete one,
           removing all the limitations imposed by shallow repositories.

           If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so that the current
           repository has the same history as the source repository.

### --update-shallow
           By default when fetching from a shallow repository, **git** **fetch** refuses refs that require
           updating .git/shallow. This option updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.

       --negotiation-tip=<commit|glob>
           By default, Git will report, to the server, commits reachable from all local refs to find
           common commits in an attempt to reduce the size of the to-be-received packfile. If
           specified, Git will only report commits reachable from the given tips. This is useful to
           speed up fetches when the user knows which local ref is likely to have commits in common
           with the upstream ref being fetched.

           This option may be specified more than once; if so, Git will report commits reachable
           from any of the given commits.

           The argument to this option may be a glob on ref names, a ref, or the (possibly
           abbreviated) SHA-1 of a commit. Specifying a glob is equivalent to specifying this option
           multiple times, one for each matching ref name.

           See also the **fetch.negotiationAlgorithm** and **push.negotiate** configuration variables
           documented in [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown), and the **--negotiate-only** option below.

### --negotiate-only
           Do not fetch anything from the server, and instead print the ancestors of the provided
           **--negotiation-tip=*** arguments, which we have in common with the server.

           Internally this is used to implement the **push.negotiate** option, see [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

### --dry-run
           Show what would be done, without making any changes.

       --[no-]write-fetch-head
           Write the list of remote refs fetched in the **FETCH**___**HEAD** file directly under **$GIT**___**DIR**.
           This is the default. Passing **--no-write-fetch-head** from the command line tells Git not to
           write the file. Under **--dry-run** option, the file is never written.

### -f, --force
           When _git_ _fetch_ is used with **<src>:<dst>** refspec it may refuse to update the local branch
           as discussed in the **<refspec>** part below. This option overrides that check.

### -k, --keep
           Keep downloaded pack.

### --multiple
           Allow several <repository> and <group> arguments to be specified. No <refspec>s may be
           specified.

       --[no-]auto-maintenance, --[no-]auto-gc
           Run **git** **maintenance** **run** **--auto** at the end to perform automatic repository maintenance if
           needed. (**--[no-]auto-gc** is a synonym.) This is enabled by default.

       --[no-]write-commit-graph
           Write a commit-graph after fetching. This overrides the config setting
           **fetch.writeCommitGraph**.

### --prefetch
           Modify the configured refspec to place all refs into the **refs/prefetch/** namespace. See
           the **prefetch** task in [**git-maintenance**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-maintenance/1/markdown).

### -p, --prune
           Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no longer exist on the
           remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they are fetched only because of the default
           tag auto-following or due to a --tags option. However, if tags are fetched due to an
           explicit refspec (either on the command line or in the remote configuration, for example
           if the remote was cloned with the --mirror option), then they are also subject to
           pruning. Supplying **--prune-tags** is a shorthand for providing the tag refspec.

           See the PRUNING section below for more details.

### -P, --prune-tags
           Before fetching, remove any local tags that no longer exist on the remote if **--prune** is
           enabled. This option should be used more carefully, unlike **--prune** it will remove any
           local references (local tags) that have been created. This option is a shorthand for
           providing the explicit tag refspec along with **--prune**, see the discussion about that in
           its documentation.

           See the PRUNING section below for more details.

### -n, --no-tags
           By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the remote repository are
           fetched and stored locally. This option disables this automatic tag following. The
           default behavior for a remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See
           [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

       --refmap=<refspec>
           When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the specified refspec (can be given
           more than once) to map the refs to remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of
           **remote.*.fetch** configuration variables for the remote repository. Providing an empty
           **<refspec>** to the **--refmap** option causes Git to ignore the configured refspecs and rely
           entirely on the refspecs supplied as command-line arguments. See section on "Configured
           Remote-tracking Branches" for details.

### -t, --tags
           Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags **refs/tags/*** into local tags with
           the same name), in addition to whatever else would otherwise be fetched. Using this
           option alone does not subject tags to pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may
           be pruned anyway if they are also the destination of an explicit refspec; see **--prune**).

### --recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
           This option controls if and under what conditions new commits of populated submodules
           should be fetched too. It can be used as a boolean option to completely disable recursion
           when set to _no_ or to unconditionally recurse into all populated submodules when set to
           _yes_, which is the default when this option is used without any value. Use _on-demand_ to
           only recurse into a populated submodule when the superproject retrieves a commit that
           updates the submodule’s reference to a commit that isn’t already in the local submodule
           clone. By default, _on-demand_ is used, unless **fetch.recurseSubmodules** is set (see **git-**
           [**config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/config/1/markdown)).

       -j, --jobs=<n>
           Number of parallel children to be used for all forms of fetching.

           If the **--multiple** option was specified, the different remotes will be fetched in
           parallel. If multiple submodules are fetched, they will be fetched in parallel. To
           control them independently, use the config settings **fetch.parallel** and
           **submodule.fetchJobs** (see [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown)).

           Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will be faster. By default fetches
           are performed sequentially, not in parallel.

### --no-recurse-submodules
           Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the same effect as using the
           **--recurse-submodules=no** option).

### --set-upstream
           If the remote is fetched successfully, add upstream (tracking) reference, used by
           argument-less [**git-pull**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-pull/1/markdown) and other commands. For more information, see
           **branch.<name>.merge** and **branch.<name>.remote** in [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

       --submodule-prefix=<path>
           Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative messages such as "Fetching submodule foo".
           This option is used internally when recursing over submodules.

       --recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
           This option is used internally to temporarily provide a non-negative default value for
           the --recurse-submodules option. All other methods of configuring fetch’s submodule
           recursion (such as settings in [**gitmodules**(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gitmodules/5/markdown) and [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown)) override this option, as
           does specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.

### -u, --update-head-ok
           By default _git_ _fetch_ refuses to update the head which corresponds to the current branch.
           This flag disables the check. This is purely for the internal use for _git_ _pull_ to
           communicate with _git_ _fetch_, and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are
           not supposed to use it.

### --upload-pack <upload-pack>
           When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by _git_ _fetch-pack_,
           **--exec=<upload-pack>** is passed to the command to specify non-default path for the command
           run on the other end.

### -q, --quiet
           Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally used git commands.
           Progress is not reported to the standard error stream.

### -v, --verbose
           Be verbose.

### --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.

       -o <option>, --server-option=<option>
           Transmit the given string to the server when communicating using protocol version 2. The
           given string must not contain a NUL or LF character. The server’s handling of server
           options, including unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
           **--server-option=<option>** are given, they are all sent to the other side in the order
           listed on the command line.

### --show-forced-updates
           By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch. This can be disabled
           through fetch.showForcedUpdates, but the --show-forced-updates option guarantees this
           check occurs. See [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

### --no-show-forced-updates
           By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during fetch. Pass
           --no-show-forced-updates or set fetch.showForcedUpdates to false to skip this check for
           performance reasons. If used during _git-pull_ the --ff-only option will still check for
           forced updates before attempting a fast-forward update. See [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

       -4, --ipv4
           Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.

       -6, --ipv6
           Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.

       <repository>
           The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull operation. This parameter
           can be either a URL (see the section GIT URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the
           section REMOTES below).

       <group>
           A name referring to a list of repositories as the value of remotes.<group> in the
           configuration file. (See [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown)).

       <refspec>
           Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When no <refspec>s appear
           on the command line, the refs to fetch are read from **remote.<repository>.fetch** variables
           instead (see CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).

           The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus **+**, followed by the source <src>,
           followed by a colon **:**, followed by the destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted
           when <dst> is empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be a fully spelled hex
           object name.

           A <refspec> may contain a ***** in its <src> to indicate a simple pattern match. Such a
           refspec functions like a glob that matches any ref with the same prefix. A pattern
           <refspec> must have a ***** in both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs to the destination
           by replacing the ***** with the contents matched from the source.

           If a refspec is prefixed by **^**, it will be interpreted as a negative refspec. Rather than
           specifying which refs to fetch or which local refs to update, such a refspec will instead
           specify refs to exclude. A ref will be considered to match if it matches at least one
           positive refspec, and does not match any negative refspec. Negative refspecs can be
           useful to restrict the scope of a pattern refspec so that it will not include specific
           refs. Negative refspecs can themselves be pattern refspecs. However, they may only
           contain a <src> and do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex object names are also
           not supported.

           **tag** **<tag>** means the same as **refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>**; it requests fetching
           everything up to the given tag.

           The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not an empty string, an
           attempt is made to update the local ref that matches it.

           Whether that update is allowed without **--force** depends on the ref namespace it’s being
           fetched to, the type of object being fetched, and whether the update is considered to be
           a fast-forward. Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as when pushing, see the
           **<refspec>...**  section of [**git-push**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-push/1/markdown) for what those are. Exceptions to those rules
           particular to _git_ _fetch_ are noted below.

           Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with [**git-push**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-push/1/markdown), any updates to
           **refs/tags/*** would be accepted without **+** in the refspec (or **--force**). When fetching, we
           promiscuously considered all tag updates from a remote to be forced fetches. Since Git
           version 2.20, fetching to update **refs/tags/*** works the same way as when pushing. I.e. any
           updates will be rejected without **+** in the refspec (or **--force**).

           Unlike when pushing with [**git-push**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-push/1/markdown), any updates outside of **refs/{tags,heads}/*** will be
           accepted without **+** in the refspec (or **--force**), whether that’s swapping e.g. a tree
           object for a blob, or a commit for another commit that’s doesn’t have the previous commit
           as an ancestor etc.

           Unlike when pushing with [**git-push**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-push/1/markdown), there is no configuration which’ll amend these
           rules, and nothing like a **pre-fetch** hook analogous to the **pre-receive** hook.

           As with pushing with [**git-push**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-push/1/markdown), all of the rules described above about what’s not
           allowed as an update can be overridden by adding an the optional leading **+** to a refspec
           (or using **--force** command line option). The only exception to this is that no amount of
           forcing will make the **refs/heads/*** namespace accept a non-commit object.

               **Note**
               When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound and rebased
               regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not be descendant of its previous tip
               (as stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would want
               to use the **+** sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates will be needed for such
               branches. There is no way to determine or declare that a branch will be made
               available in a repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply must know this
               is the expected usage pattern for a branch.

### --stdin
           Read refspecs, one per line, from stdin in addition to those provided as arguments. The
           "tag <name>" format is not supported.

## GIT URLS
       In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the address of the remote
       server, and the path to the repository. Depending on the transport protocol, some of this
       information may be absent.

       Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and ftps can be used for
       fetching, but this is inefficient and deprecated; do not use it).

       The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and should be used with caution
       on unsecured networks.

       The following syntaxes may be used with them:

       •   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       •   git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       •   http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       •   ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/

       An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:

       •   [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/

       This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first colon. This helps
       differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For example the local path **foo:bar** could be
       specified as an absolute path or **./foo:bar** to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.

       The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:

       •   ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       •   git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       •   [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/

       For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syntaxes may be used:

       •   /path/to/repo.git/

       •   file:///path/to/repo.git/

       These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the former implies
       --local option. See [**git-clone**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-clone/1/markdown) for details.

       _git_ _clone_, _git_ _fetch_ and _git_ _pull_, but not _git_ _push_, will also accept a suitable bundle file.
       See [**git-bundle**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-bundle/1/markdown).

       When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it attempts to use the
       _remote-<transport>_ remote helper, if one exists. To explicitly request a remote helper, the
       following syntax may be used:

       •   <transport>::<address>

       where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary URL-like string recognized
       by the specific remote helper being invoked. See [**gitremote-helpers**(7)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gitremote-helpers/7/markdown) for details.

       If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and you want to use a
       different format for them (such that the URLs you use will be rewritten into URLs that work),
       you can create a configuration section of the form:

                   [url "<actual url base>"]
                           insteadOf = <other url base>


       For example, with this:

                   [url "git://git.host.xz/"]
                           insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
                           insteadOf = work:


       a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten in any
       context that takes a URL to be "git://git.host.xz/repo.git".

       If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a configuration section of the
       form:

                   [url "<actual url base>"]
                           pushInsteadOf = <other url base>


       For example, with this:

                   [url "ssh://example.org/"]
                           pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/


       a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
       "ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still use the original URL.

## REMOTES
       The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as **<repository>** argument:

       •   a remote in the Git configuration file: **$GIT**___**DIR/config**,

       •   a file in the **$GIT**___**DIR/remotes** directory, or

       •   a file in the **$GIT**___**DIR/branches** directory.

       All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line because they each
       contain a refspec which git will use by default.

### Named remote in configuration file
       You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously configured using **git-**
       [**remote**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/remote/1/markdown), [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown) or even by a manual edit to the **$GIT**___**DIR/config** file. The URL of
       this remote will be used to access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
       default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The entry in the config file
       would appear like this:

                   [remote "<name>"]
                           url = <url>
                           pushurl = <pushurl>
                           push = <refspec>
                           fetch = <refspec>


       The **<pushurl>** is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to **<url>**.

   **Named** **file** **in** **$GIT**___**DIR/remotes**
       You can choose to provide the name of a file in **$GIT**___**DIR/remotes**. The URL in this file will
       be used to access the repository. The refspec in this file will be used as default when you
       do not provide a refspec on the command line. This file should have the following format:

                   URL: one of the above URL format
                   Push: <refspec>
                   Pull: <refspec>


       **Push:** lines are used by _git_ _push_ and **Pull:** lines are used by _git_ _pull_ and _git_ _fetch_. Multiple
       **Push:** and **Pull:** lines may be specified for additional branch mappings.

   **Named** **file** **in** **$GIT**___**DIR/branches**
       You can choose to provide the name of a file in **$GIT**___**DIR/branches**. The URL in this file will
       be used to access the repository. This file should have the following format:

                   <url>#<head>


       **<url>** is required; **#<head>** is optional.

       Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs, if you don’t provide
       one on the command line. **<branch>** is the name of this file in **$GIT**___**DIR/branches** and **<head>**
       defaults to **master**.

       git fetch uses:

                   refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>


       git push uses:

                   HEAD:refs/heads/<head>


## CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES
       You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and repeatedly fetching from
       it. In order to keep track of the progress of such a remote repository, **git** **fetch** allows you
       to configure **remote.<repository>.fetch** configuration variables.

       Typically such a variable may look like this:

           [remote "origin"]
                   fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*


       This configuration is used in two ways:

       •   When **git** **fetch** is run without specifying what branches and/or tags to fetch on the
           command line, e.g.  **git** **fetch** **origin** or **git** **fetch**, **remote.<repository>.fetch** values are
           used as the refspecs—they specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. The
           example above will fetch all branches that exist in the **origin** (i.e. any ref that matches
           the left-hand side of the value, **refs/heads/***) and update the corresponding
           remote-tracking branches in the **refs/remotes/origin/*** hierarchy.

       •   When **git** **fetch** is run with explicit branches and/or tags to fetch on the command line,
           e.g.  **git** **fetch** **origin** **master**, the <refspec>s given on the command line determine what
           are to be fetched (e.g.  **master** in the example, which is a short-hand for **master:**, which
           in turn means "fetch the _master_ branch but I do not explicitly say what remote-tracking
           branch to update with it from the command line"), and the example command will fetch _only_
           the _master_ branch. The **remote.<repository>.fetch** values determine which remote-tracking
           branch, if any, is updated. When used in this way, the **remote.<repository>.fetch** values
           do not have any effect in deciding _what_ gets fetched (i.e. the values are not used as
           refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they are only used to decide _where_ the
           refs that are fetched are stored by acting as a mapping.

       The latter use of the **remote.<repository>.fetch** values can be overridden by giving the
       **--refmap=<refspec>** parameter(s) on the command line.

## PRUNING
       Git has a default disposition of keeping data unless it’s explicitly thrown away; this
       extends to holding onto local references to branches on remotes that have themselves deleted
       those branches.

       If left to accumulate, these stale references might make performance worse on big and busy
       repos that have a lot of branch churn, and e.g. make the output of commands like **git** **branch**
### -a --contains
       with the complete set of known references.

       These remote-tracking references can be deleted as a one-off with either of:

           # While fetching
           $ git fetch --prune <name>

           # Only prune, don't fetch
           $ git remote prune <name>


       To prune references as part of your normal workflow without needing to remember to run that,
       set **fetch.prune** globally, or **remote.<name>.prune** per-remote in the config. See [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

       Here’s where things get tricky and more specific. The pruning feature doesn’t actually care
       about branches, instead it’ll prune local ←→ remote-references as a function of the refspec
       of the remote (see **<refspec>** and CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES above).

       Therefore if the refspec for the remote includes e.g. **refs/tags/*:refs/tags/***, or you
       manually run e.g. **git** **fetch** **--prune** **<name>** **"refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*"** it won’t be stale remote
       tracking branches that are deleted, but any local tag that doesn’t exist on the remote.

       This might not be what you expect, i.e. you want to prune remote **<name>**, but also explicitly
       fetch tags from it, so when you fetch from it you delete all your local tags, most of which
       may not have come from the **<name>** remote in the first place.

       So be careful when using this with a refspec like **refs/tags/*:refs/tags/***, or any other
       refspec which might map references from multiple remotes to the same local namespace.

       Since keeping up-to-date with both branches and tags on the remote is a common use-case the
       **--prune-tags** option can be supplied along with **--prune** to prune local tags that don’t exist
       on the remote, and force-update those tags that differ. Tag pruning can also be enabled with
       **fetch.pruneTags** or **remote.<name>.pruneTags** in the config. See [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown).

       The **--prune-tags** option is equivalent to having **refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*** declared in the
       refspecs of the remote. This can lead to some seemingly strange interactions:

           # These both fetch tags
           $ git fetch --no-tags origin 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
           $ git fetch --no-tags --prune-tags origin


       The reason it doesn’t error out when provided without **--prune** or its config versions is for
       flexibility of the configured versions, and to maintain a 1=1 mapping between what the
       command line flags do, and what the configuration versions do.

       It’s reasonable to e.g. configure **fetch.pruneTags=true** in **~/.gitconfig** to have tags pruned
       whenever **git** **fetch** **--prune** is run, without making every invocation of **git** **fetch** without
       **--prune** an error.

       Pruning tags with **--prune-tags** also works when fetching a URL instead of a named remote.
       These will all prune tags not found on origin:

           $ git fetch origin --prune --prune-tags
           $ git fetch origin --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'
           $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune --prune-tags
           $ git fetch <url of origin> --prune 'refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'


## OUTPUT
       The output of "git fetch" depends on the transport method used; this section describes the
       output when fetching over the Git protocol (either locally or via ssh) and Smart HTTP
       protocol.

       The status of the fetch is output in tabular form, with each line representing the status of
       a single ref. Each line is of the form:

            <flag> <summary> <from> -> <to> [<reason>]


       The status of up-to-date refs is shown only if the --verbose option is used.

       In compact output mode, specified with configuration variable fetch.output, if either entire
       **<from>** or **<to>** is found in the other string, it will be substituted with ***** in the other
       string. For example, **master** **->** **origin/master** becomes **master** **->** **origin/***.

       flag
           A single character indicating the status of the ref:

           (space)
               for a successfully fetched fast-forward;

           **+**
               for a successful forced update;

           **-**
               for a successfully pruned ref;

           **t**
               for a successful tag update;

           *****
               for a successfully fetched new ref;

           **!**
               for a ref that was rejected or failed to update; and

           **=**
               for a ref that was up to date and did not need fetching.

       summary
           For a successfully fetched ref, the summary shows the old and new values of the ref in a
           form suitable for using as an argument to **git** **log** (this is **<old>..<new>** in most cases,
           and **<old>...<new>** for forced non-fast-forward updates).

       from
           The name of the remote ref being fetched from, minus its **refs/<type>/** prefix. In the case
           of deletion, the name of the remote ref is "(none)".

       to
           The name of the local ref being updated, minus its **refs/<type>/** prefix.

       reason
           A human-readable explanation. In the case of successfully fetched refs, no explanation is
           needed. For a failed ref, the reason for failure is described.

## EXAMPLES
       •   Update the remote-tracking branches:

               $ git fetch origin

           The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/ namespace and stores
           them to the local refs/remotes/origin/ namespace, unless the branch.<name>.fetch option
           is used to specify a non-default refspec.

       •   Using refspecs explicitly:

               $ git fetch origin +seen:seen maint:tmp

           This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches **seen** and **tmp** in the local repository by
           fetching from the branches (respectively) **seen** and **maint** from the remote repository.

           The **seen** branch will be updated even if it does not fast-forward, because it is prefixed
           with a plus sign; **tmp** will not be.

       •   Peek at a remote’s branch, without configuring the remote in your local repository:

               $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
               $ git log FETCH_HEAD

           The first command fetches the **maint** branch from the repository at
           **git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git** and the second command uses **FETCH**___**HEAD** to
           examine the branch with [**git-log**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-log/1/markdown). The fetched objects will eventually be removed by
           git’s built-in housekeeping (see [**git-gc**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-gc/1/markdown)).

## SECURITY
       The fetch and push protocols are not designed to prevent one side from stealing data from the
       other repository that was not intended to be shared. If you have private data that you need
       to protect from a malicious peer, your best option is to store it in another repository. This
       applies to both clients and servers. In particular, namespaces on a server are not effective
       for read access control; you should only grant read access to a namespace to clients that you
       would trust with read access to the entire repository.

       The known attack vectors are as follows:

        1. The victim sends "have" lines advertising the IDs of objects it has that are not
           explicitly intended to be shared but can be used to optimize the transfer if the peer
           also has them. The attacker chooses an object ID X to steal and sends a ref to X, but
           isn’t required to send the content of X because the victim already has it. Now the victim
           believes that the attacker has X, and it sends the content of X back to the attacker
           later. (This attack is most straightforward for a client to perform on a server, by
           creating a ref to X in the namespace the client has access to and then fetching it. The
           most likely way for a server to perform it on a client is to "merge" X into a public
           branch and hope that the user does additional work on this branch and pushes it back to
           the server without noticing the merge.)

        2. As in #1, the attacker chooses an object ID X to steal. The victim sends an object Y that
           the attacker already has, and the attacker falsely claims to have X and not Y, so the
           victim sends Y as a delta against X. The delta reveals regions of X that are similar to Y
           to the attacker.

## BUGS
       Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already checked out submodules right
       now. When e.g. upstream added a new submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject
       the submodule itself cannot be fetched, making it impossible to check out that submodule
       later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to be fixed in a future Git
       version.

## SEE ALSO
       [**git-pull**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-pull/1/markdown)

## GIT
       Part of the [**git**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git/1/markdown) suite



Git 2.34.1                                   02/26/2026                                 [GIT-FETCH(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/GIT-FETCH/1/markdown)