How do I run git log to see changes only for a specific branch?

Assuming that your branch was created off of master, then while in the branch (that is, you have the branch checked out):

git cherry -v master

or

git log master..

If you are not in the branch, then you can add the branch name to the "git log" command, like this:

git log master..branchname

If your branch was made off of origin/master, then say origin/master instead of master.

Use:

git log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate  --first-parent <branch_name>

It is only for the target branch (of course --graph, --abbrev-commit --decorate are more polishing).

The key option is --first-parent: "Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit" (https://git-scm.com/docs/git-log)

It prevents the commit forks from being displayed.

If you want only those commits which are done by you in a particular branch, use the below command.

git log branch_name --author='Dyaniyal'

The problem I was having, which I think is similar to this, is that master was too far ahead of my branch point for the history to be useful. (Navigating to the branch point would take too long.)

After some trial and error, this gave me roughly what I wanted:

git log --graph --decorate --oneline --all ^master^!

just run git log origin/$BRANCH_NAME