Undo & History

How to Recover Deleted Commits or Branches with Git Reflog

Find and restore commits or branches that were accidentally lost after a hard reset, bad rebase, or branch deletion.

Instant 1-Line Solution

Safe CommandAdvanced

git reflog

When to use this scenario:You accidentally ran "git reset --hard" or deleted a branch before pushing, and thought your code was gone forever.

Step-by-Step Execution Guide

1View all recent HEAD movements

git reflog

Shows a chronological log of every HEAD change (commits, checkouts, resets) with identifiers like HEAD@{2}.

2Find the commit right before the accident

git reflog show --date=relative

Helps identify which point in time contained your lost work.

3Restore to a new recovery branch

git checkout -b recovery-branch HEAD@{2}

Creates a brand new branch pointing directly to the recovered commit state.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about safe rollback, remote history implications, and troubleshooting.

No. Git reflog only records commits. Unstaged, uncommitted files discarded with "git restore" cannot be recovered via reflog.

Undo your most recent Git commit while keeping all your edited files staged or unstaged in your working directory.

Discard all unstaged and uncommitted file modifications and restore your working tree to the latest commit.

Rename your current local branch and update the upstream remote tracking branch on GitHub or GitLab.

Delete a branch from remote origin (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) after a pull request has been merged.

Amend the commit message of your latest commit before or after pushing.

Remove files from the Git staging area (index) without losing any of your local changes.