Git Tutorial for Beginners: A Quick Start Guide

Learn the basics of Git source control from the ground up in this git tutorial. Learn best practices, tips, and tricks so you can get up and running with git right away.

This video assumes that you do not know anything about git so it starts you off as a beginner would, by installing git. It then moves on to a very basic example that you can follow along with. As the video progresses, you will dive into more and more realistic examples. This guide will prepare you for the real world usage of source control, specifically git.

Typically git is used to protect code but this video does not utilize code or code tools in order to keep the example as simple as possible and so that the beginner users will not get confused as to what is git and what is the code.

The basic git commands will be explained and demonstrated. While a few gui tools will be identified, the primary tool of this video is git bash because it is what git was designed for and it is what everyone has.

0:00 - DIY without GIT
4:15 - GIT goals
5:53 - Getting started
18:39 - Changing the files
21:19 - Adding new files
25:25 - GIT branch
28:47 - Deleting files in branch
32:56 - deleting GIT branch
34:59 - Making changes in GIT branch and merging changes
45:21 - Merging changes between multiple branches
57:51 - Remote GIT (Bitbucket)
1:07:45 - View commits
1:13:31 - pushing commits to remote
repository
1:18:59 - joining a project form remote GIT
1:28:10 - summary

[Motivos]

Old tutorial. Still relevant and excellent. Excellent straight forward, hands-on, practical walkthrough and explanations for beginners. Thanks Tim.

[abanoubmerian]

This is not just a tutorial, it's a Masterpiece of how things should be explained ... I'm really speechless and impressed

[robrick]

Listing all the commands on the side like that, makes this video a great memory aide.
I frequently come back just to reread the list.
A+ for thoughtfulness.

[stealthworks]

This is probably one of THE best tutorials I've seen on GIT. Assumes no prior knowledge and walks you through step by step. keep up the good work Tim :)

[sunnydewangan]

@Tim, you kept it very simple...no beating around the bush, straight to the point. Loved your tutorial!!!

[andergarcia]

I deeply appreciate your timeless insights and willingness to share them. Looking forward to checking out your videos! Thank you.

[RaterisimoCBA]

I'm 17 minutes in and it's already an excellent tutorial and perfectly presented set of contents. Super visual explanation of everything step by step. Tim you are a beast ! Thanks ! I'm your new biggest fan lately !

[larrycullen]

After watching multiple tutorials that all seemed to target just the distributed environment, I was getting very frustrated. Your tutorial is by far the best I've viewed. It gave me a great start using git in a non-distributed way, which is what I needed to do. Thank you so much for creating this tutorial and making what seems to be a complex subject much more easily grasped.

[delroymiller]

You are an excellent author and always do a great job presenting the material your in video tutorials. Always very clear, practical and concise. Nicely done!

[mirragemelkyr]

Seeing that after seeing your new videos, shows the long path of making this channel more evident. Great Video. Again Thanks for the content

[veenawanjari]

Thank you so much Tim. I have watched tonnes of videos before, but there is no match to yours. Keep uploading new Many cheers to you.

[MehdiGlz]

Thanks a lot, great explanation!


by the way "git add ." does add deleted files, must be from newer version

For any other total beginners to bash like me, if you noticed how when he did the "git commit" notepad opened up, but for you the file got opened in the command line, you can set it up to open notepad like this:
git config core.editor notepad
or adding the pathfile to your prefered program, for example:
git config --global core.editor "'C:/Program -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin" (the last parameters are running options for notepad)

[RalfsBalodis]

0:00 - DIY without GIT
4:15 - GIT goals
5:53 - Getting started
18:39 - Changing the files
21:19 - Adding new files
25:25 - GIT branch
28:47 - Deleting files in branch
32:56 - deleting GIT branch
34:59 - Making changes in GIT branch and merging changes
45:21 - Merging changes between multiple branches
57:51 - Remote GIT (Bitbucket)
1:07:45 - View commits
1:13:31 - pushing commits to remote
repository
1:18:59 - joining a project form remote GIT
1:28:10 - summary

[koitaki]

I'll second the appreciative comments below that give this tutorial a big wrap Timothy...very clear, concise, informative and useful, many thanks!

[satori]

Great video. I didn't understand everything the first time that I watched it, but after getting more hands-on practice using git in Visual Studio, I watched it a second time. This time it clicked, and I got a better understanding regarding some of the details, and what is going on under the hood.

[JonathanWieben]

I wil be attending a coding bootcamp in a few weeks and for preparation i wanted to learn git. I watched a few tutorials and introductions and got an idea how git works. But your tutorial was different and made me REALLY understand what I can do with it. So easy to grasp yet learning a lot new stuff.
This was awesome. Thank you so much!

[yanakovaleva]

The absolute best video tutorial on git for beginners! Tim, thank you for your wonderful work. When watching your videos you can literally feel how much you care about teaching, you are explaining so thoroughly and making sure it's detailed and structured.

[davidsierra]

Watched on 1.25x and I can honestly say this is the best Git tutorial out there, subbed!

[pujarajat]

Thanks Tim Corey - i had for years been avoiding moving from SVN to GIT and your tutorial was absolutely fantastic and simple to understand in how you built up the concepts. Now I love GIT - all thanks to you. Please keep it up - your style of instruction is really good.

[stbny]

I'm a mech engineer by trade and i'm trying to learn more flexible coding languages rather than using things like Matlab. Your videos are amazingly clear and always answer the questions I'm thinking as I watch your videos. Super well done and thank you.