+++
date = "2011-09-13"
title = "Git: checkout a single file from another commit or branch"
tags = ["git"]
slug = "git-checkout-a-single-file-from-another-commit-or-branch"
+++
I recently worked on a new feature in a separate branch. It didn't work out well, so I branched master again and tried another solution. However, I needed a specific filesI committed in the first feature branch. To avoid placing those files back in my working copy by hand, I used git to checkout the specific file from the other branch.

``` shell
git checkout feature_1 -- path/to/file/iwant
```

This will *not* checkout the `feature_1` branch, but instead checkout the most recent version of `path/to/file/iwant` in the `feature_1` branch. Very handy indeed!