Git Reflog

What the reflog records

Every time HEAD moves — a commit, a checkout, a rebase, a reset, a merge, even an amend — Git appends an entry to the reflog. This is a purely local, per-repository record; it isn't pushed to remotes and isn't shared with collaborators. It exists specifically as a safety net for you, tracking where your own HEAD has been over roughly the last 90 days by default.

$ git reflog
4d5e6f7 (HEAD -> main) HEAD@{0}: commit: fix null pointer in refund calc
8g9h0i1 HEAD@{1}: rebase (finish): returning to refs/heads/feature/nav
8g9h0i1 HEAD@{2}: rebase (pick): add validation for refund amount
a1b2c3d HEAD@{3}: checkout: moving from main to feature/nav
9f8e7d6 HEAD@{4}: commit: add refund UI

Recovering a commit lost to a hard reset

The most common panic moment reflog solves: you ran git reset --hard one commit too far, or reset to entirely the wrong commit, and now git log shows your work is gone. It isn't actually gone — the commit object still exists in Git's database until garbage collection eventually cleans it up, and the reflog still knows its hash.

$ git reset --hard HEAD~3
HEAD is now at 9f8e7d6 add refund UI
$ git reflog
9f8e7d6 HEAD@{0}: reset: moving to HEAD~3
4d5e6f7 HEAD@{1}: commit: fix null pointer in refund calc
$ git reset --hard HEAD@{1}
HEAD is now at 4d5e6f7 fix null pointer in refund calc

Recovering a deleted branch

Deleting a branch with git branch -D doesn't delete its commits either — it only removes the pointer. As long as you know (or can find) the last commit hash the branch pointed to, you can recreate the branch from that hash using the reflog.

$ git branch -D feature/nav-redesign
Deleted branch feature/nav-redesign (was 8g9h0i1).
$ git reflog | grep nav-redesign
8g9h0i1 HEAD@{2}: checkout: moving from main to feature/nav-redesign
$ git branch feature/nav-redesign 8g9h0i1
$ git checkout feature/nav-redesign

Reflog entries vs. regular commit history

Reflog is local-only — a limitation worth knowing

Because the reflog lives only in your local .git directory, it cannot help a teammate recover a commit that only ever existed on their machine, and it can't be inspected on the remote server. If a commit was pushed at any point, though, the remote's own reflog or the reflog on anyone else who fetched it may still have a copy — which is one more reason to push work-in-progress branches regularly rather than keeping days of history only on your laptop.