Recovering Lost Commits in Git (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 6 May, 2026

Git is a powerful version control tool, but improper usage can lead to lost commits. However, lost work can be recovered using commands like git reflog and git cherry-pick.

• Lost commits can occur due to resets, rebases, or incorrect operations.
• git reflog helps track previous actions and locate lost commits.
• git cherry-pick is used to restore specific commits back into the branch.

**Note: Reflog data is temporary. Git periodically cleans it, so recovery must be done promptly.

Procedure to Recover Lost Commits

Step 1: View Reflog History

The first step is to view all previous actions and commits in the repository.

git reflog

**Note: Commit hashes will differ in your local repository. Use the relevant hash from your reflog.

Step 2: Identify the Commit

Find the commit hash you want to recover.
**Example: e77111b

Step 3: Recover the Commit

Use the git cherry-pick command to restore the commit.

git cherry-pick e77111b

Output:

Handling Merge Conflicts (If Any)

If a conflict occurs during recovery, you may see:

error: could not apply 12944d8... API touchups
hint: after resolving the conflicts, mark the corrected paths
hint: with 'git add ' or 'git rm '
hint: and commit the result with 'git commit'

Steps to Resolve merge conflict

**Step 1: Manually resolve conflicts in the affected files

**Step 2: Stage the resolved files:

git add

**Step 3: Complete the process:

git commit