Git Checkout Previous Branch

If you want to checkout the branch you were previously working on, run this command:

git checkout -

It’s magic! You don’t have to remember or type the branch you were just on.

Example Git Merge Flow

Consider if I’m on a feature branch and I want to check out and update the main branch and merge changes into my feature branch. I can do this:

$ git checkout feature-branch

$ git checkout main

$ git pull origin main

$ git checkout -
# Now we're back on feature-branch, but let's check ...

$ git branch
* feature-branch
main

$ git merge main

(Technically, there’s a more efficient way to do this.) But the point is that I didn’t have to type “feature-branch” again. Instead, I changed back into the feature-branch branch automatically by running git checkout -.

Magic! 🪄