Hi I almost got bit by git: I knew there were changes on the remote server, but git status said I was uptodate with the remote. This page explains it well. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27828404/why-does-git-status-show-branch-is-up-to-date-when-changes-exist-upstream That page also contains a good suggestion: Why ... not design it to [optionally] DO a fetch and THEN declare whether it is up to date? Or change the message to tell what it really did, e.g. "Your branch was up-to-date with 'origin/master' when last checked at {timestamp}"? Or even just say, "Do a fetch to find out whether your branch is up to date"? Thanks, and best wishes, Ron