How can I Resync a fork from original

Question

I just forked a project in Github. I made modifications and sent a pull request. The owner merged my fork with the main project and after that he made some modifications. So for now my fork is not updated with the main project. I miss the modifications he made after merging my pull request. How can I update my fork with the Main project? Is there a way to do that in the web interface?

Thanks

Solution 1

By design, forking a project creates a separate repo that is not updated when the original repo changes. However, git makes it pretty easy to update manually.

You need the help of a 3rd repository (your local copy suffices). There are 3 repos:

• "Upstream": The upstream project's repository on Github.
• "Origin": Your fork's repository on Github
• "Local": Your local repository on your computer. I will assume you created it by cloning Fork using git clone [email protected]:your-username/projectname.git, and that everyone is using branch master.

Assuming currently "Origin" and "Local" are in the same state, and "Upstream" is ahead by 1 or more commits (the merge and any subsequent changes).

First add the upstream project as a Git remote:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/upstream-username/projectname.git

Then pull (meaning fetch and then merge automatically) the changes from the remote's master branch into your local repository's current (master) branch:

git pull upstream master

Now your local repository is in sync with upstream. Finally, push your local repo to your Github fork:

git push origin master

Now everything is in sync.

Solution 2

You need to add a remote (see GitHub help) and pull from that new remote.

git remote add mainProject https://github.com/user/mainProject
git pull mainProject master

Comments

[Admin]

I write a simple instruction. check out at here: webapps.stackexchange.com/a/58140/63016

[Admin]

There's now an official doc which is well done: help.github.com/articles/syncing-a-fork

[bAN]

Thanks a lot.. it's a shame that this may not be possible to make that in the web interface..

[thSoft]

This is indeed possible on the web interface: webapps.stackexchange.com/a/31010/10390

[pepoluan]

Yeehaw! I had been tearing my hair out trying to find this explicit info. Thanks for sharing!

[usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ]

... but please take also a look at the answer's comments, proving that Resync via web is not the best option as it pollutes repository

[roberto tomás]

what do you do when it says "already up to date" after the pull, but it is obviously not? (there are files I changed all in one subdirectory, and I should have no differences in any other file, but I do)