How to Resolve Merge Conflicts in GitHub Desktop

Edited 1 week ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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When working with Git and GitHub, it's common to encounter merge conflicts, especially when multiple people are collaborating on the same project. A merge conflict occurs when changes in two branches affect the same lines in a file, and Git doesn't know which changes should take priority. Fortunately, GitHub Desktop provides tools to help you identify and resolve these conflicts efficiently. This guide will guide you through understanding and resolving merge conflicts using GitHub Desktop.

Understanding merge conflicts

Merge conflicts occur during merge operations. For example, if you are trying to merge changes from one branch to another, and both of them have modifications to the same lines in a file, Git will prompt you to resolve the conflict. This prevents destructive changes, ensuring that you have control over the final content.

When do merge conflicts occur?

Merge conflicts can occur in different scenarios:

• Two team members have modified the same lines in a file, and their work needs to be integrated.
• A file was deleted in one branch and modified in another branch.
• Rebase or cherry-picks where the same changes are made in different commits.

Prerequisites for resolving merge conflicts

Before you can resolve merge conflicts, make sure you have the following:

• GitHub Desktop: Installed on your system. It is available for both Windows and macOS.
• Access to the repository: Make sure you have cloned the repository to your local machine using GitHub Desktop.
• Git basics: getting familiar with branches and changesets.

Steps to resolve merge conflicts in GitHub Desktop

You should follow the following detailed steps to resolve merge conflicts using GitHub Desktop:

Step 1: Clone the repository

If you haven’t cloned your repository yet, or if you want to start fresh, you can clone it using GitHub Desktop:

1. Open GitHub Desktop.
2. Go to File > Clone Repository.
3. Find your repository from the list or use the URL tab, then click Clone.

This adds the repository to GitHub Desktop, allowing you to create and switch branches as needed.

Step 2: Create a new branch

When working on a feature or bugfix, it is a good practice to create a new branch:

1. Click the Current Branch menu in GitHub Desktop.
2. Select a new branch
3. Give your branch an appropriate name and click Create Branch.

Work on this branch and commit your changes. When you're ready to merge it into the main branch, you'll address any conflicts that arise at that time.

Step 3: Try merging

When you're ready to merge your branch, do so as follows:

1. Make sure the branch you want to merge your changes into is checked out in GitHub Desktop.
2. Select the Branch menu.
3. Select Merge into current branch... (make sure your feature branch is not a checked-out branch).
4. Select the branch you want to merge from and confirm the merge.

If there are any conflicting changes, GitHub Desktop will alert you about the conflicts.

Step 4: Resolve disputes

To resolve disputes:

1. GitHub Desktop will show conflicting files in the Uncommitted Changes section. Select the conflicting file.
2. You'll see conflict marks in the file, which look like this:

<<<<<<< HEAD Changes in the current branch ======= Changes from the branch being merged >>>>>>> branch-name
<<<<<<< HEAD Changes in the current branch ======= Changes from the branch being merged >>>>>>> branch-name

These markers indicate which parts of the code differ between branches. You have three options:

• Keep changes in HEAD - These are the changes in your currently checked-out branch.
• Keep changes from branch-name - the branch you are merging from.
• Merge changes from both sets - You can edit the code to combine the logic of both sets of changes.

After you've made your choice, remove the conflict markers from the file.

Step 5: Commit the resolved changes

Once you've manually resolved conflicts:

1. Review your changes to make sure everything is working as expected.
2. In GitHub Desktop, resolved files will now appear as modified.
3. Add and commit your changes by providing a meaningful commit message explaining the conflict resolution.

Step 6: Complete the merge

After applying the resolved changes, you will be able to complete the merge smoothly.

In some cases, if work is ongoing in the main branch, you may need to pull additional changes synchronously. This ensures that all changes from collaborators are integrated.

Tips for avoiding merge conflicts

Here are some best practices for minimizing merge conflicts:

• Frequent Pulls: Regularly pull changes from the main branch to keep your feature branch up to date.
• Smaller, more frequent commitments: Making small, incremental changes reduces the risk of conflict.
• Effective communication: Communicate with team members about file ownership and changes. If multiple developers need to work on the same file, devise a strategy for merging changes.
• Use .gitignore: Configure .gitignore to exclude files that don't need to be version-controlled, such as build artifacts.

Conclusion

In short, resolving merge conflicts in GitHub Desktop involves locating and editing conflicting areas in files, keeping or combining the changes, and then committing those changes back to your branch. Although merge conflicts may seem daunting initially, understanding them as learnable and manageable processes makes a big difference. With practice and the right practices, you will be more confident in your collaboration skills and your ability to effectively manage and resolve merge conflicts.

It's important to develop these skills by practicing them over time throughout your project. As you continue to collaborate on larger projects, you'll find that these skills will become second nature to you, and you'll begin to prevent conflicts before they even arise.

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