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Separate Folder from Git Repository with Complete History

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Git
Git
By Parvaiz Ahmad 1 min read

Splitting a subfolder out into a new git repository

Before proceeding with splitting a subfolder into a new git repository, make sure to create a backup of your existing repository. This will help you preserve the complete history and avoid any potential data loss. You need Git version 2.22.0 or later to follow these instructions, otherwise git filter-repo will not work.

If you create a new clone of the repository, you won’t lose any of your Git history or changes when you split a folder into a separate repository. However, note that the new repository won’t have the branches and tags of the original repository.

  1. Open a Git Bash, Terminal or Command Prompt.
  2. Change the current working directory to the location where you want to create your new repository.

  3. Clone the repository that contains the subfolder.

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    git clone https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY-NAME
  4. Change the current working directory to your cloned repository.
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    cd REPOSITORY-NAME

Windows users should use / to delimit folders.

  1. To filter out the subfolder from the rest of the files in the repository, install git-filter-repo, then run git filter-repo with the following arguments.
    • FOLDER-NAME: The folder within your project where you’d like to create a separate repository.
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     git filter-repo --path FOLDER1-NAME/ --path FOLDER2-NAME/
 # Filter the specified branch in your directory and remove empty commits

    The repository should now only contain the files that were in your subfolder(s). If you want one specific subfolder to be the new root folder of the new repository, you can use the following command:

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     git filter-repo --subdirectory-filter FOLDER-NAME
 # Filter the specific branch by using a single sub-directory as the root for the new repository
  2. Create a new repository on GitHub/GitLab.
  3. Add a new remote name with the URL you copied for your repository. For example, origin or upstream are two common choices.
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     git remote add origin https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY-NAME.git
  4. Verify that the remote URL was added with your new repository name.
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     git remote -v
 # Verify new remote URL
 origin  https://github.com/USERNAME/NEW-REPOSITORY-NAME.git (fetch)
 origin  https://github.com/USERNAME/NEW-REPOSITORY-NAME.git (push)
  5. Push your changes to the new repository on GitHub.
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     git push -u origin BRANCH-NAME
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