How to un-commit last un-pushed git commit without losing the changes

Is there a way to revert a commit so that my local copy keeps the changes made in that commit, but they become non-committed changes in my working copy? Rolling back a commit takes you to the previous commit - I want to keep the changes made but I committed them to the wrong branch.

This has not been pushed, only committed.

Solution 1:

There are a lot of ways to do so, for example:

in case you have not pushed the commit publicly yet:

git reset HEAD~1 --soft   

That's it, your commit changes will be in your working directory, whereas the LAST commit will be removed from your current branch. See git reset man

In case you did push publicly (on a branch called 'master'):

git checkout -b MyCommit //save your commit in a separate branch just in case (so you don't have to dig it from reflog in case you screw up :) )

revert commit normally and push

git checkout master
git revert a8172f36 #hash of the commit you want to destroy
# this introduces a new commit (say, it's hash is 86b48ba) which removes changes, introduced in the commit in question (but those changes are still visible in the history)
git push origin master

now if you want to have those changes as you local changes in your working copy ("so that your local copy keeps the changes made in that commit") - just revert the revert commit with --no-commit option:

git revert --no-commit 86b48ba (hash of the revert commit).

I've crafted a small example: https://github.com/Isantipov/git-revert/commits/master

Solution 2:

If you pushed the changes, you can undo it and move the files back to stage without using another branch.

git show HEAD > patch
git revert HEAD
git apply patch

It will create a patch file that contain the last branch changes. Then it revert the changes. And finally, apply the patch files to the working tree.

Solution 3:

For the case: "This has not been pushed, only committed." - if you use IntelliJ (or another JetBrains IDE) and you haven't pushed changes yet you can do next.

1. Go to Version control window (Alt + 9/Command + 9) - "Log" tab.
2. Right-click on a commit before your last one.
3. Reset current branch to here
4. pick Soft (!!!)
5. push the Reset button in the bottom of the dialog window.

Done.

This will "uncommit" your changes and return your git status to the point before your last local commit. You will not lose any changes you made.