Support git --follow to preserve history across renames

[cletusw]

When a file is moved or renamed, the GitHub History doesn't show commits from before the move. Git itself supports the --follow option to show full history in these cases (and apparently it's much less buggy now then it used to be), but there is no way to achieve this in GitHub.

This has been requested many times, but has yet to be implemented.

Current workaround seems to be installing this Chrome extension, but that's insufficient for a large dev team.

[cletusw]

My response from GitHub:

Thanks for reaching out about this! I'll add your +1 to the feature request for enabling the --follow flag to handle file renames better.

I can't promise if or when this change will happen, but your feedback is in the right hands!

GitHub Support

[emesterhazy]

This chrome extension is a nice workaround, but this feature should be supported natively. For example, the --follow option is standard on Gitlab.

[mahboud]

Any news? It's tedious not to be able to see that a couple files are merely the same, but after a name change rather than to see two very large diffs.

[qwertzguy]

Any updates? We have Github Enterprise and this is an ongoing pain for the entire company.

[chrisgorski-fugue]

Please enable this feature.

[Adam-Langley]

wow - just got bitten by this myself... I took the time to build a migration script to move my SVN repos across to GitHub while maintaining full history, but did a little structure tidying up in the process - and was then surprised to see my carefully reconstructed history was "missing" :(

[HazAT]

We (@getsentry) recently made the transition to a mono repo, merging all our JS SDKs together.
We think a mono repo is easier for users to find and submitting new issues/prs to.
On top for us it's easier to handle because we only have to maintain one repo.

Long story short, we just realized we ran into this as well.
We moved this file for example in a subfolder:
https://github.com/getsentry/raven-js/commits/master/packages/raven-js/src/raven.js

Before it was here:
https://github.com/getsentry/raven-js/commits/90ba2470379bb4c5a85c30d86387e0200aa7ffcf/src/raven.js

while a local git log --follow packages/raven-js/src/raven.js works like a charm, it's sad to see that Github is not showing the whole log for the file 😢

We'd love to browse through the source on Github, also the blame view is very helpful at times. The chrome extension is better than nothing but we hope this will be the default on Github.

Would sponsor a 🍺 for this feature 🤜 🤛

Cheers

[girishkg]

I also recently moved tons of source code from SVN to GitHub (internal enterprise instance) but this feature is really a missing peace with the enterprise offerings. We need this ASAP as this is very useful and mandatory feature.

[brunorijsman]

+1 Ability to preserve pre-move history of file after moving it to a different directory is must-have functionality. Was more than a little amazed to find out this is not available on Github. Was even more amazed to discover that Github does not provide any official way for the community to request / vote on feature requests. Quite counter intuitive given what Github is.

[MrChocolateMoose]

What is the process to prioritize and implement this feature? We, additionally, would love to see this feature implemented!

[c4urself]

Would love this, going to follow this thread with great anticipation.

[harleensahni]

Can github as a stopgap at least alert you when viewing the history for the file that the history is not complete (and suggest you view the history from git with --follow)? This would be a good first step.

[laike9m]

Wait, this is the largest Git repo hosting website and It's not supported? 😱

[e-serrano-r]

Renames are a common thing, seeing the complete file history should be supported and would be very useful.

[brlcad]

My goodness, any update GitHub?? Some expectation and voiced response, even if it's as vague as "maybe next year" would be appreciated at this point.

[onassar]

Don't worry @brlcad, I have a feeling that they'll roll this out sometime during the 2020's 🤣

[iampeterdaniels]

+1

[nmyk]

+1

[ForrestTrepte]

+1

[drozdvadym]

+1

[gusbmurphy]

I'm resisting the urge to write "+1".

[benevbright]

hey pig

[jeffstieler]

I'm quite surprised there's been no progress made here..

In the meantime, I've patched the Chrome extension so it can remain a temporary solution.

[joelclimbsthings]

+1

[dtkirsch]

+1

For crying out loud, why is this still a thing? Sometimes people need to move files. Sometimes other people need to understand the who/when/why of changes to that file afterward.

At this point, this is more of an essential bugfix rather than a new feature request (and I challenge anyone from GitHub to make a case that it's a feature without referring to the history of git and GitHub -- see how important history is?).

[Alex-R-A]

Wow, it is 1/4 of 2021 in. Still nada?

Can you just tell us what do you want? Money? Fame? Just say something.

[richard-atkins]

+1

[dtateii]

In case it helps anyone: blame in GitHub does seem to display the original commit history, including commits that are not shown in the GitHub commit log.

Also, for those using VS Code as their editor, the GitLens extension does follow the log history, and it has an "Open Commit on GitHub" option that will open the original commit in GitHub.

[crespinb]

+1

[ischorr]

+1

[ColinTheRobot]

+1

[omavi]

+1

[hodapp512]

+1

[Levi-Lesches]

For all those writing +1 or asking why this hasn't been done yet -- this isn't the official GitHub feedback repo. Upvote a discussion there or open a new one linking back here if you can't find one. GitHub staff don't monitor these pages, but they are responsive there.

[hodapp512]

Thanks, @Levi-Lesches.

Here is the relevant discussion from the GitHub repo. If everyone subscribed to this issue upvotes it, that should help its visibility.