By default “git branch” doesn’t show the remote branches for a cloned repo, so use “git branch -a” to see all of them and then make a local branch with a suitable name:
$ git clone git@github.com:CVL-dev/cvl-fabric-launcher.git Cloning into 'cvl-fabric-launcher'... X11 forwarding request failed on channel 0 remote: Counting objects: 1527, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (749/749), done. remote: Total 1527 (delta 792), reused 1463 (delta 728) Receiving objects: 100% (1527/1527), 6.28 MiB | 996 KiB/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (792/792), done. $ cd cvl-fabric-launcher/ $ git branch -a * master remotes/origin/CVLFAB45_ssh_tunnel_check remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master remotes/origin/TurboVNC_java_test remotes/origin/detailed_logging remotes/origin/master $ git checkout -b detailed_logging remotes/origin/detailed_logging Branch detailed_logging set up to track remote branch detailed_logging from origin. Switched to a new branch 'detailed_logging'
Credit: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/67699/how-do-i-clone-all-remote-branches-with-git.