How I Moved a Subfolder to a New GitHub Repo With Full Git History

Jayesh Verma — Sat, 14 Jun 2025 19:22:17 +0000

How I Moved a Subfolder to a New GitHub Repo With Full Git History

Recently, I needed to move a subfolder named Day4 Backend from one of my large GitHub repositories (Backend-Practice) into a separate repository, while preserving the entire commit history of that folder.

Turns out, this is totally possible — and actually quite easy using a powerful tool called git filter-repo.

Here’s how I did it 👇

🧰 Tools You’ll Need

Git installed on your system
git filter-repo – a faster and safer alternative to git filter-branch

💡 Install git filter-repo using pip:
pip install git-filter-repo

📁 Scenario

Source repository:
https://github.com/Jv2350/Backend-Practice

Subfolder to extract:
Day4 Backend

Target repository:
https://github.com/Jv2350/Video-Hosting-Website

My goal was to move only Day4 Backend into a new repository with all its commits intact.

🚀 Step-by-Step Guide

1️⃣ Clone the original repository

git clone https://github.com/Jv2350/Backend-Practice.git Video-Hosting-Website
cd Video-Hosting-Website

2️⃣ Extract the subfolder using `git filter-repo`

git filter-repo --subdirectory-filter "Day4 Backend"

✅ This will:

Remove everything except the Day4 Backend folder
Move its contents to the root
Retain only the commits that touched that folder

3️⃣ Create a new GitHub repo

Go to GitHub and create a new repo, e.g., Video-Hosting-Website.

Then add it as a remote:

git remote add origin https://github.com/Jv2350/Video-Hosting-Website.git

4️⃣ Push your clean history

git push -u origin main

✅ Final Result

Now your new repository will:

Contain only the contents of the Day4 Backend folder
Have a clean project root
Retain all commit history related to that folder only

🔗 Here's my result:
👉 github.com/Jv2350/Video-Hosting-Website

🐞 Common Errors & Fixes

❌ No such remote: 'origin'
After using git filter-repo, the default remote is removed.
👉 Fix: Just skip git remote rename and directly add a new remote with:

git remote add origin <url>

❌ Spaces in URLs
Make sure your GitHub repo name doesn’t contain spaces. Use hyphens instead, like:

https://github.com/Jv2350/Video-Hosting-Website.git

🧼 Bonus: Clean Up

Now that your repo is split and clean, consider:

Adding a README.md
Creating a .gitignore
Setting up a new LICENSE

💬 Final Thoughts

Splitting a subfolder into a new GitHub repo without losing history is easier than it sounds — and git filter-repo makes it lightning fast ⚡

This method helped me clean up my projects, improve modularity, and organize my work better.

I hope this helps you too! 🙌
If you found it useful, drop a comment or share it with someone who works with Git 💻

Happy hacking! 🚀

My Journey into Tech: From Curiosity to Code

Jayesh Verma — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 15:16:48 +0000

My Journey into Tech: From Curiosity to Code 🚀

Hello DEV Community! 👋

I'm Jayesh Verma, a Computer Science graduate from CKT College Panvel (Batch 2022–2025). This is my very first post on DEV, and I'm super excited to begin sharing and learning with all of you!

🌱 How It All Started

My journey into tech began with curiosity – I was always fascinated by how websites, apps, and software work behind the scenes. That led me to explore programming languages like C, C++, Java, Python, and JavaScript.

As I dived deeper, I discovered a passion for web development and cybersecurity – fields that keep evolving and challenging me every day.

🎓 My Learning So Far

✅ Strong foundation in HTML, CSS, JavaScript
📚 Currently exploring MERN stack and full-stack development
📜 Earned certifications in AI, cybersecurity, and productivity tools
💡 Participated in tech fests, coding competitions, and hackathons
🎯 CGPA: 9.73 and still pushing forward!

💡 Areas of Interest

I’m especially interested in:

🌐 Full-Stack Web Development
🔐 Cybersecurity
⚙️ MERN Stack (MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js)
🤖 Artificial Intelligence
☁️ Cloud fundamentals (getting started here too!)

Every day I’m trying to deepen my understanding and build meaningful projects to apply what I learn.

💬 Let’s Connect!

If you’re also starting your tech journey, into full-stack dev, cybersecurity or just want to say hi — feel free to drop a comment! 👇

Thanks for reading and being part of this amazing community! 🙌

#beginners #webdev #programming #devjourney

DEV Community: Jayesh Verma

How I Moved a Subfolder to a New GitHub Repo With Full Git History