How do I properly use git rename remote branch to fix a typo in the branch name?

General Discussions
1

I accidentally created a remote branch named regacy (instead of legacy) and my local master branch is currently tracking origin/regacy.

I want to correct this using the git rename remote branch approach, essentially renaming origin/regacy to origin/legacy or origin/master.

I tried running:

git remote rename regacy legacy
But it threw this error:
error: Could not rename config section 'remote.regacy' to 'remote.legacy'

What’s the correct way to rename a remote branch in Git without breaking the local tracking setup?

Any advice on how to safely do this and push the changes would be appreciated!

2

In Git, you can’t technically rename a remote branch like you would a local file, it’s more of a delete-and-push process.

To fix your typo, you’ll want to create a new branch with the correct name, push it, and then remove the old one:

bash
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git checkout regacy
git branch -m legacy         # rename locally
git push origin legacy       # push new branch
git push origin --delete regacy  # delete the typo branch

After this, make sure to update any open pull requests or CI configs that were pointing to regacy.

Git doesn’t have a rename remote branch command per se, but this gets you the same result.