How can I rename a git stash?

Question

Let's assume your stash list looks like this:

$ git stash list
stash@{0}: WIP on master: Add some very important feature 
stash@{1}: WIP on master: Fix some silly bug

First, you must remove stash entry which you want to rename:

$ git stash drop stash@{1}
Dropped stash@{1} (af8fdeee49a03d1b4609f294635e7f0d622e03db)

Now just add it again with new message using sha of commit returned after dropping:

$ git stash store -m "Very descriptive message" af8fdeee49a03d1b4609f294635e7f0d622e03db

And that's it:

$ git stash list
stash@{0}: Very descriptive message
stash@{1}: WIP on master: Add some very important feature

This solution requires git 1.8.4 or later, and yes, it works with dirty working directory too.

Unless you do it manually or contribute an improvement to Git, you can use an alias:

git config --global alias.stash-rename '!_() { rev=$(git rev-parse $1) && git stash drop $1 || exit 1 ; git diff-index --quiet HEAD; s=$?; [ $s != 0 ] && git stash save "tmp stash from stash-rename"; git stash apply $rev && shift && git stash save "$@" && [ $s != 0 ] && git stash pop stash@{1}; }; _'

Usage: "git stash-rename <stash> [save options] [<message>]"

With [save options] any option of git stash save: [-p|--patch] [-k|--[no-]keep-index] [-q|--quiet] [-u|--include-untracked] [-a|--all]

Example:

$ git stash list
stash@{0}: On master: Pep8 format
stash@{1}: On master: co other than master with local changes
stash@{2}: On master: tests with deployAtEnd

# Let's say I want to rename the stash@{2} adding an issue reference:
$ git stash-rename stash@{2} NXP-13971-deployAtEnd

$ git stash list
stash@{0}: On master: NXP-13971-deployAtEnd
stash@{1}: On master: Pep8 format
stash@{2}: On master: co other than master with local changes

That will work even if you have local unstaged changes :)

EDIT 2016/02/22

Simplified script, credits to qzb, https://stackoverflow.com/a/35549615/515973

git config --global alias.stash-rename '!_() { rev=$(git rev-parse $1) && git stash drop $1 || exit 1 ; git stash store -m "$2" $rev; }; _'

Usage: "git stash-rename <stash> [<message>]"

It's very simple. First, undo the last stash with:

git stash pop

After this, yo can save the stash with a customized name in this way:

git stash save "your explanatory name"

I hope it useful for you. :)

I don't think it is possible to do so. There has been a proposal for stash renaming, but it has not been implemented yet.

My general idea is:

1. Implement a new git reflog update command that updates the message associated with a specific reflog entry. To do this, a new update_reflog_ent() function (in reflog.c) would change the message associated with the specific reflog entry to update. An update_reflog() function would use for_each_reflog_ent() with update_reflog_ent to actually do the change.

2. A git stash rename command would then only need to call git reflog update with the appropriate ref and new message.

Or you could, of course, pop the stash and do a git stash save [message]