How to Clone a Git Repository (Including Shallow Clones)

Cloning downloads an existing Git repository to your local computer, giving you a full local copy of the project — including its complete history — ready to work on.

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Basic Usage

In its simplest form, provide the repository URL and Git will create a local folder named after the repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/gittower/git-crash-course.git

To clone into a folder with a different name, specify it as a second argument:

$ git clone https://github.com/gittower/git-crash-course.git my-project

If the repository contains submodules, use --recurse-submodules to clone and initialize them all in one step:

$ git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/example/repo.git

Shallow Clones

By default, git clone downloads the repository's complete history. For large repositories with long histories, this can be slow. A shallow clone fetches only the most recent commits, making the initial download significantly faster and smaller.

Creating a Shallow Clone

Use the --depth option to specify how many commits to fetch:

# Fetch only the latest commit (fastest)
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/example/repo.git

# Fetch the last 10 commits
$ git clone --depth 10 https://github.com/example/repo.git

Shallow clones are ideal for CI/CD pipelines, where you need the current code quickly and don't need the full history for each build.

Expanding a Shallow Clone

If you need more history than you initially fetched, use --deepen:

# Add 50 more commits to your existing shallow clone
$ git fetch --deepen 50

To convert a shallow clone into a full clone with complete history:

$ git fetch --unshallow

Limitations

Shallow clones work well for most day-to-day tasks, but there are some operations that require the full history:

• git bisect — relies on the complete commit history to find bugs
• git log --follow — may miss renames outside the shallow boundary
• Rebasing — operations involving commits outside the fetched history may fail

If you run into issues, deepen your clone or run git fetch --unshallow before the operation.