git-mv(1) — Linux manual page

NAME \| SYNOPSIS \| DESCRIPTION \| OPTIONS \| SUBMODULES \| BUGS \| GIT \| COLOPHON

GIT-MV(1)                       Git Manual                      GIT-MV(1)

NAME top

       git-mv - Move or rename a file, a directory, or a symlink

SYNOPSIS top

       git mv [-v] [-f] [-n] [-k] <source> <destination>
       git mv [-v] [-f] [-n] [-k] <source>... <destination-directory>

DESCRIPTION top

       Move or rename a file, directory, or symlink.

       In the first form, it renames <source>, which must exist and be
       either a file, symlink or directory, to <destination>. In the
       second form, <destination-directory> has to be an existing
       directory; the given sources will be moved into this directory.

       The index is updated after successful completion, but the change
       must still be committed.

OPTIONS top

       -f, --force
           Force renaming or moving of a file even if the <destination>
           exists.

       -k
           Skip move or rename actions which would lead to an error
           condition. An error happens when a source is neither existing
           nor controlled by Git, or when it would overwrite an existing
           file unless -f is given.

       -n, --dry-run
           Do nothing; only show what would happen

       -v, --verbose
           Report the names of files as they are moved.

SUBMODULES top

       Moving a submodule using a gitfile (which means they were cloned
       with a Git version 1.7.8 or newer) will update the gitfile and
       core.worktree setting to make the submodule work in the new
       location. It also will attempt to update the submodule.<name>.path
       setting in the gitmodules(5) file and stage that file (unless -n
       is used).

BUGS top

       Each time a superproject update moves a populated submodule (e.g.
       when switching between commits before and after the move) a stale
       submodule checkout will remain in the old location and an empty
       directory will appear in the new location. To populate the
       submodule again in the new location the user will have to run "git
       submodule update" afterwards. Removing the old directory is only
       safe when it uses a gitfile, as otherwise the history of the
       submodule will be deleted too. Both steps will be obsolete when
       recursive submodule update has been implemented.

GIT top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON top

       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-MV(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-add(1), git-commit(1)