---
title: Git Submodules: Error When Switching Branches
description: If you've received 'error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout', you are likely using git submodules. Here is how to get around that error.
date: 2021-08-19
tags: git, git submodules, troubleshooting
source: https://brianchildress.co/blog/git-submodules-error-when-switching-branches
---

# Git Submodules: Error When Switching Branches

If you've received the error "*The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout*" you are likely using git submodules. [Git Submodules](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Submodules) are a tool that allows you to pull in a separate working tree, often another repository, into an existing repository. Submodules are handy for code isolation and code management within an organization. When working in a repository that leverages submodules you could potentially see errors when you try to checkout or switch to a different branch. 

**Steps to reproduce:**

1. `git checkout my-feature-branch`
   *error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by checkout*
2. `git status`
   *On branch main*
   *nothing to commit, working directory clean*
  
**Solution**

In this case we have to force a checkout, ignoring the untracked files, using the `-f` flag.

`git checkout my-feature-branch -f`

This will at least allow us to switch branches. To more permanently fix the issue we need to remove and re-add the submodules.

1. `rm -rf /path/to/submodule`
2. `git checkout main`
3. `git merge my-feature-branch`
4. `git submodule foreach git fetch --tags`
5. `git submodule update --init --recursive`

By executing a few more commands we're effectively updating the `main` branch with the code from `my-feature-branch`.