This version of GitHub Enterprise Server will be discontinued on 2026-09-22. Discontinued releases are not supported. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features in GitHub Enterprise Server, see Overview of the upgrade process. For help with the upgrade, GitHub Enterprise Support.

Managing branches in GitHub Desktop

You can use GitHub Desktop to create a new branch off of an existing branch in your repository so you can safely experiment with changes.

Platform navigation

In this article

About managing branches

You can use branches to safely experiment with changes to your project. Branches isolate your development work from other branches in the repository. For example, you could use a branch to develop a new feature or fix a bug.

You always create a branch from an existing branch. Typically, you might create a branch from the default branch of your repository. You can then work on this new branch in isolation from changes that other people are making to the repository.

You can also create a branch starting from a previous commit in a branch's history. This can be helpful if you need to return to an earlier view of the repository to investigate a bug, or to create a hot fix on top of your latest release.

Once you're satisfied with your work, you can create a pull request to merge your changes in the current branch into another branch. For more information, see Creating an issue or pull request from GitHub Desktop and Pull requests.

You can always create a branch in GitHub Desktop if you have read access to a repository, but you can only push the branch to GitHub if you have write access to the repository.

Repository administrators can enable protections on a branch. If you're working on a branch that's protected, you won't be able to delete or force push to the branch. Repository administrators can enable other protected branch settings to enforce specific workflows before a branch can be merged. For more information, see About protected branches.

Repository administrators can also enable rulesets. Rulesets can be used to require specific branch names when creating a new branch, or to allow only users with bypass permissions to publish a new branch to the remote repository. GitHub Desktop will show a warning and prevent the branch from being created if the branch does not follow the rulesets. For more information, see About rulesets.

Creating a branch

Tip

The first new branch you create will be based on the default branch. If you have more than one branch, you can choose to base the new branch on the currently checked out branch or the default branch.

  1. At the top of the app, click Current Branch and then in the list of branches, click the branch that you want to base your new branch on.

    Screenshot of the "Current Branch" dropdown view. Under "Recent Branches", a branch, named "my-feature", is highlighted with an orange outline.

  2. Click New Branch.

    Screenshot of the "Current Branch" dropdown view. Next to the "Filter" field, a button, labeled "New Branch", is outlined in orange.

  3. In the "Create a Branch" window, under "Name", type the name of the new branch.

  4. Under "Create branch based on...", select a base branch for your new branch.

  5. Click Create Branch.

Creating a branch from a previous commit

  1. In the left sidebar, click History.