By google-ing, we'd find a simple command as git branch -m master main
which should rename the master
branch to main
.
What if it was not successful and you had,
error: refname refs/heads/master not found
fatal: Branch rename failed
Well, in my case, I create a new project then I initialized git. I then remembered that by default, on Github, the default branch is main
and not master
anymore.
You can change the name from master
to main
in few steps, locally before you even make a commit.
- Navigate to the directory where your project sits.
- In it, show hidden file since by default,
.git
would be hidden. - Inside
.git
, there is a file,HEAD
, open it in a text editor. You'd see,ref: refs/heads/master
. - Simple enough, change,
master
tomain
.
We just renamed the master
branch as main
. Verify this merely by entering, git branch
from the terminal.
In an instance where the project is new locally (the project is git initialized locally), then after the first commit, git add . && git commit -m "Initial commit"
we can rename the current branch with, git branch -m main`.