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Jayesh Verma
Jayesh Verma

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

#git #github #versioncontrol #productivity

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
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2️⃣ Extract the subfolder using git filter-repo 

git filter-repo --subdirectory-filter "Day4 Backend"
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✅ 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
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4️⃣ Push your clean history 

git push -u origin main
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✅ 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>
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❌ 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
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🧼 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! 🚀

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