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I cloned an existing repo from Git (Bitbucket) and copied that file to a new location. Now I wanted to push that to an empty repository to Bitbucket as a new project with changes that are related to that project. This happened:

git remote add origin
fatal: remote origin already exists

After that I checked the git version (with $ git remote -v) and it indicates to the original cloned git repo from the last project. Is there a way to remove the git history so that I can do git init and push the project to a new repo? If I use rm -rf .git will that harm the original cloned git repo? Or can I then initialize the new project and push that to the new empty repo?

Nella
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3 Answers3

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Description

The reason why you are getting this

fatal: remote origin already exists

is because origin is a local version of a remote repository. Think of it as a folder with a name origin.

Example

Just change the name when you add a remote 

git remote add <name> <url>

You can use whatever name you like, as long as it doesn't violate conditions applied by the file system

Alternatively, you can remove the remote origin. 

git remote rm origin

Note: This will remove local copy of a remote repository named origin from your file system!

Reference

git-remote

e.doroskevic
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  • You are most welcome! If you are satisfied with any of the answers, could you please accept one of them to show the question has been answerd? :) – e.doroskevic Aug 11 '16 at 08:28
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Inside .git you store everthing related to your local clone of a git repository. In your case it should be no problem to delete it and rerun git init . after. Once you have done this you have to commit your complete folder …. so your commands could look like (pseudo)

$ cd new_project
$ rm -rf .git
$ git init .
$ git add *
$ git commit -m "Initial commit of my fork"
$ git remote add … 
$ git push

However, this would purge the complete history of the base of your fork. I would consider this bad style and might conflicts with copyright depending on license original project is used. why not conside a full fork and do something like: 

$ cd original_repo
$ git remote add -f myfork <bitbucketurl>
$ git push myfork

After that has be done you can either remove the original origin from your clone or just reclone from bitbucket. This would keep original history.

frlan
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You can simple add a new remote (git remote add new_origin destination), or rename the actual (git remote rename origin old_origin), or delete the actual (git remote rm actual_destination).

Toni Piza
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