Move Git commits from master to a new branch

Have you ever accidentally committed to the master branch instead of a feature branch? Or maybe you just want to move some local commits to a new branch? This is easily fixable, as long as the changes have only been committed locally and not pushed to the remote repository.

First off, you want to create a new branch at the tip of the current master branch. You can do this using the git branch <branch> command. Then, you can rewind back a certain number of commits and discard the changes using git reset HEAD~<n> --hard. Finally, you can switch to the new branch using git checkout <branch>.

# Syntax:
#  git branch <branch>
#  git reset HEAD~<n> --hard
#  git checkout <branch>

git checkout master
git add .
git commit -m "Fix network bug"
# At this point, the commit "Fix network bug" is on the `master` branch

git branch patch-1
# `patch-1` branch is created containing the commit "Fix network bug"

# The `master` branch is still checked out, at the same state as `patch-1`
# Remove the commit "Fix network bug" from the `master` branch
git reset HEAD~1 --hard

# Switch to the `patch-1` branch
git checkout patch-1