How to Undo a Commit in Git ?

Last Updated : 30 Jun, 2024

Git offers several ways to backtrack and correct mistakes, making it a powerful tool for developers. In this article, we will explore various methods to undo a commit in Git, ensuring that you can choose the best approach for your specific system.

Below are the approaches to Undo a commit in Git:

Table of Content

Understanding Git Commits

Before learning the methods, it's essential to understand what a commit in Git represents. A commit is a snapshot of your project's files at a specific point in time. A unique SHA-1 hash identifies each commit. When you want to undo a commit, you are essentially changing the history of these images.

Methods to Undo a Commit in Git

1. Using Git reset

Step 1: First check all your commits

#git log

Output: commits are just examples or sample commits

commit 2: second commit  
commit 1:  First commit

Perception drawn are as follows:

commit 2 is the commit you want to undo, the current head is here
commit1 is the first commit where you want to go after undo

Step 2: To restore everything or undo all the changes we have to reset the commit.

#git reset --soft HEAD^

#git reset --hard HEAD^

Note:
soft is used if you want to keep your changes
hard is used if you don't want to keep your changes

Step 3: To check your commit is reset or not

#git log

Output:

commit 1: First commit   
//undo the second commit, now head is at first or previous commit

One can clearly see last commit (i.e. second commit) is removed.

2. Using Git revert

Now if we have already made your commit public then you will have to create a new commit which will "revert" the changes you made in your previous commit (current HEAD).

Step 1: Revert your changes

#git revert HEAD

We are now ready for your new commit in order to restore the file that we accidentally have remove with the below command as follows:

#git commit -m

Step 2: Now check your all commits to see the list of commits

#git log

Output:

commit 3: restoring the file that we accidentally remove  
commit 2: removing a file we don't need 
commit 1: Needed file

Now we can revert your last commit.

Also do note that we use the command below specified to undo the last commits in git where the head is a pointer pointing to the last commit in our branch

git reset HEAD~<no-of-commits>

3. Using git checkout

The git checkout command can be used to create a new branch from a specific commit. This method is helpful when you want to keep the original branch unchanged.

Steps to create a new branch from a specific commit:

1. Identify the commit hash you want to create a branch from.

git log