Autocomplete Git Commands and Branch Names

By Chris LojniewskiDecember 28, 2016

In a terminal on Mac OS X, you can use [TAB] to autocomplete file names and file paths.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do the same with git commands and branch names?

Step 1: Get git-completion script

Get the git-completion.bash script and put it in your home directory:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash -o ~/.git-completion.bash

Make sure that you are in your home directory:

cd ~/

Add the following code to your .bash_profile (~/.bash_profile).

if [ -f ~/.git-completion.bash ]; then
  . ~/.git-completion.bash
fi

If you don’t have .bash_profile file just create it and append the code on the end.

The script will work for all new terminal tabs (or windows), to have it running right away you need to execute it:

source ~/.bash_profile

Go to any folder with git repository. You should find that [TAB] now autocompletes commands and branch names.

J
Posted on 2018-09-22 16:09:37
This is great! I wish it worked with my git aliases. For instance, instead of typing `git checkout`, I like typing `gco`. Unfortunately I don’t get branch auto-completion this way.
Ruth Morata Gil
Posted on 2020-06-07 18:06:36
So simple and still, for some reason, it won’t work for me :/
I get the same as always when I hit tab after “git” in a folder with git repo. Oh well!
Andrey
Posted on 2021-01-21 20:01:15
When running the command
source ~/.bash_profile
I get this
ERROR: this script is obsolete, please see git-completion.zsh
Meg G.
Posted on 2021-03-04 22:03:02
Worked like a charm, thanks for posting this!