Set up git to pull and push all branches

With modern git you always fetch all branches (as remote-tracking branches into refs/remotes/origin/* namespace, visible with git branch -r or git remote show origin).

By default (see documentation of push.default config variable) you push matching branches, which means that first you have to do git push origin branch for git to push it always on git push.

If you want to always push all branches, you can set up push refspec. Assuming that the remote is named origin you can either use git config:

$ git config --add remote.origin.push '+refs/heads/*:refs/heads/*'
$ git config --add remote.origin.push '+refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*'

or directly edit .git/config file to have something like the following:

[remote "origin"]
        url = user@example.com:/srv/git/repo.git
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
        fetch = +refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*
        push  = +refs/heads/*:refs/heads/*
        push  = +refs/tags/*:refs/tags/*

The full procedure that worked for me to transfer ALL branches and tags is, combining the answers of @vikas027 and @kumarahul:

~$ git clone <url_of_old_repo>
~$ cd <name_of_old_repo>
~$ git remote add new-origin <url_of_new_repo>
~$ git push new-origin --mirror
~$ git push new-origin refs/remotes/origin/*:refs/heads/*
~$ git push new-origin --delete HEAD

The last step is because a branch named HEAD appears in the new remote due to the wildcard

I found the best and simplest method here, just as @kumarahul posted, works like a charm for me, it will push all the tags and branches from origin to the new remote:

git remote add newremote new-remote-url

git push newremote --tags refs/remotes/origin/*:refs/heads/*

I used 'git push --all -u newremote', but it only push the checkouted branches to the newremote.

Git: Push All Branches to a New Remote

by Keith Dechant , Software Architect

Here's a scenario some of you might have encountered with your Git repositories. You have a working copy of a Git repo, say from an old server. But you only have the working copy, and the origin is not accessible. So you can't just fork it. But you want to push the whole repo and all the branch history to your new remote.

This is possible if your working copy contains the tracking branches from the old remote (origin/branch1, origin/branch1, etc.). If you do, you have the entire repo and history.

However, in my case there were dozens of branches, and some or all of them I had never checked out locally. Pushing them all seemed like a heavy lift. So, how to proceed?

I identified two options:

Option 1: Checkout every branch and push I could do this, and I could even write a Bash script to help. However, doing this would change my working files with each checkout, and would create a local branch for each of the remote tracking branches. This would be slow with a large repo.

Option 2: Push without changing your working copy There is a second alternative, which doesn't require a checkout of each branch, doesn't create extraneous branches in the working copy, and doesn't even modify the files in the working copy.

If your old, no-longer-active remote is called "oldremote" and your new remote is called "newremote", you can push just the remote tracking branches with this command:

git push newremote refs/remotes/oldremote/*:refs/heads/*

In some cases, it's also possible to push just a subset of the branches. If the branch names are namespaced with a slash (e.g., oldremote/features/branch3, oldremote/features/branch4, etc.), you can push only the remote tracking branches with names beginning with "oldremote/features":

git push newremote refs/remotes/oldremote/features/*:refs/heads/features/*

Whether you push all the branches or just some of them, Git will perform the entire operation without creating any new local branches, and without making changes to your working files. Every tracking branch that matches your pattern will be pushed to the new remote.

For more information on the topic, check out this thread on Stack Overflow.

Date posted: October 9, 2017

If you are pushing from one remote origin to another, you can use this:

git push newremote refs/remotes/oldremote/*:refs/heads/*

This worked for me. Reffer to this: https://www.metaltoad.com/blog/git-push-all-branches-new-remote

Add your new remote repo and the last step will exclude the HEAD branch when you push

git clone <url_of_old_repo>
cd <name_of_old_repo>
git remote add new-origin <url_of_new_repo>
git ls-remote . | grep 'refs/remotes/origin/' | grep -v 'HEAD' | awk -F 'origin/' '{print $2}' | xargs -i git push -f new-origin  --tags refs/remotes/origin/{}:refs/heads/{}

first add the remote git to your loacl with

git remote add remote_name remote_address

and after you just need to do it with the following command

git push --all remote_name