Undo git commit --amend and get the original commit back

Does this match your situation?

• You meant to make a new commit and typed --amend out of habit.
• An amend swallowed changes from someone else's commit.
• The commit message you overwrote is gone and you want it back.
• 'Your branch and 'origin/main' have diverged' after amending something already pushed.

Step-by-step fix

1. Read the reflog

   The amend is recorded as 'commit (amend)' and the entry directly below it is the commit as it was before. Nothing has been deleted — you are looking at both versions side by side.

   step 1Copy

   git reflog
   # 8a3f9c2 HEAD@{0}: commit (amend): Fix login redirect
   # c71d0e5 HEAD@{1}: commit: Fix login redirect
   # 2b4a8d1 HEAD@{2}: checkout: moving from main to feature
   

2. Look at the old commit before you move

   Confirm it is the one you want. The pre-amend commit is a complete, valid commit and you can inspect it exactly like any other.

   step 2Copy

   git show HEAD@{1}
   git diff HEAD@{1} HEAD
   

3. Go back to it, keeping your work

   --soft moves the branch pointer to the original commit and leaves everything the amend added staged in the index, so nothing is lost either way — you can commit it separately, which is usually what you meant to do.

   step 3Copy

   git reset --soft HEAD@{1}
   git status        # the amended changes are staged
   git commit -m "The second change, as its own commit"
   

4. Or discard the amend completely

   When the amend was simply a mistake and you want the original commit and nothing else, --hard is the direct route.

   step 4Copy

   git reset --hard HEAD@{1}
   

   🚨This discards the changes the amend introduced along with anything uncommitted in your working tree.

5. Recover just the old commit message

   If all you lost was the wording, take it from the old commit without moving anything.

   step 5Copy

   git log -1 --format=%B HEAD@{1} > /tmp/msg.txt
   git commit --amend -F /tmp/msg.txt
   

6. If it was already pushed

   An amended commit has a different hash, so your branch and the remote have diverged. Force-push with lease, which refuses if anyone else has pushed since you last fetched.

   step 6Copy

   git push --force-with-lease
   

   ⚠️On a shared branch, tell people first — anyone who pulled the old commit will need to reset to the new history.

Why this works

Commits are immutable. --amend does not modify one; it builds a brand-new commit from your current index with the same parent, then moves the branch pointer to it. The original is untouched in .git/objects — it simply has nothing pointing at it any more, which in Git means unreachable rather than deleted. The reflog is what makes it findable: HEAD's journal records both positions, so HEAD@{1} still names the pre-amend commit for as long as the entry survives, which is 90 days by default. Even after that, git fsck can list the object until garbage collection actually prunes it.

If that didn’t work

• git fsck --lost-found lists unreachable commits if the reflog entry has expired.
• If you amended more than once, count further back: HEAD@{2}, HEAD@{3} and so on.
• ORIG_HEAD is not set by amend, so the reflog is the reliable source here.
• On a shared branch, another clone or the remote may still hold the original commit — fetch it and cherry-pick.

How to stop it happening again

• Never amend a commit that has been pushed to a branch other people use.
• Use git commit --amend --no-edit deliberately, and check git log -1 before pushing.
• Configure a prompt or alias that shows the last commit hash so you notice when it changes.
• Push with --force-with-lease rather than --force, always.

Commands used in this guide

Frequently asked questions