How to Properly Rename a Directory in a Git Repository

  1. Renaming a Git directory in a Repository
  2. The git mv Command
  3. Related Resources

Sometimes, it is necessary to rename a directory in a git repository. Git allows doing it with the help of the git mv command. Below, we will describe how it works.

Renaming a Git directory in a Repository

You should run the git mv command like this:

git mv <old-name> <new-name>

Sometimes, carrying out a case-sensitive rename may require to take two steps:

git mv casesensitive tmp
git mv tmp CaseSensitive

Then you can git add and git commit the changes.

This system is not a very appropriate solution; nevertheless it works perfectly. Though the system doesn’t recognize the change of the letter case, Git does. That is why it is considered as a preferred way of renaming folders in Git world.

The git mv Command

The git mv command takes two arguments: a source and a destination. To move a number of files to a single path, you can specify “n” sources, but the last argument is the destination. First, it renames the source, which must exist and be either a file, symlink, or directory. The last argument must be an existing directory to which the given sources should be moved.