Can't checkout remote branch using GitHub Desktop

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angrycrab picture angrycrab · Oct 28, 2015 · Viewed 12.6k times · Source

When I first clone a repo using GitHub Desktop (windows version), I'm able to see all of the branches and can checkout the branches.

However, if another contributor creates a new remote branch (after I've done the clone), GitHub Desktop isn't able to fetch and checkout the new branches. The branches are visible via the GitHub website. The only way I've found to checkout these branches via GitHub desktop is to delete the local repo and clone again. I was expecting the "Sync" button to handle fetching new branches from the remote repo.

Any ideas?

Answer

Guillaume CR picture Guillaume CR · Nov 4, 2015

According to Steve Ward at GitHub Support:

You should be able to hit F5 in GitHub Desktop to refresh the repository and fetch any new branches from the remote repository. There currently aren't any animations for this process, but it should work without issue. [...] we automatically fetch new branches every five minutes as well.

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