To rename the current branch:
git branch -m <newname>
To rename a branch while pointed to any branch:
git branch -m <oldname> <newname>
-m is short for --move.
To push the local branch and reset the upstream branch:
git push origin -u <newname>
To delete the remote branch:
git push origin --delete <oldname>
To create a git rename alias:
git config --global alias.rename 'branch -m'
On Windows or another case-insensitive filesystem, use -M if there are only capitalization changes in the name. Otherwise, Git will throw a "branch already exists" error.
git branch -M <newname>
As mentioned, delete the old one on GitHub and re-push, though the commands used are a bit more verbose than necessary:
git push origin :name_of_the_old_branch_on_github
git push origin new_name_of_the_branch_that_is_local
Dissecting the commands a bit, the git push command is essentially:
git push <remote> <local_branch>:<remote_branch>
So doing a push with no local_branch specified essentially means "take nothing from my local repository, and make it the remote branch". I've always thought this to be completely kludgy, but it's the way it's done.
As of Git 1.7 there is an alternate syntax for deleting a remote branch:
git push origin --delete name_of_the_remote_branch
As mentioned by @void.pointer in the comments
Note that you can combine the 2 push operations:
git push origin :old_branch new_branch
This will both delete the old branch and push the new one.
This can be turned into a simple alias that takes the remote, original branch and new branch name as arguments, in ~/.gitconfig:
[alias]
branchm = "!git branch -m $2 $3 && git push $1 :$2 $3 -u #"
Usage:
git branchm origin old_branch new_branch
Note that positional arguments in shell commands were problematic in older (pre 2.8?) versions of Git, so the alias might vary according to the Git version. See this discussion for details.
Best Answer
I just did it without downloading any code to my laptop and using only the GitHub site. The solution looks the same as @swcool’s, but I want to add about the default branch.
In my case, the name of the renaming branch did not exist.
Change the default branch (to the old branch you want to rename)
Create a new branch (with a new name)
This action will copy all the contents of the default branch (the branch with the old name) to the new branch (with a new name). At this time, you have two branches with the same code.
Change the default branch (to the new one with a new name)
Delete the old branch