Thanks for all the replies! Now I see pretty clear; a quick summary (in case somebody else wants to learn from this): 1. "git mv file new_file" seems to be (exactly?) equivalent to mv file new_file git rm file git add new_file (Perhaps this information could be added to the git-mv-documentation? I would have found it useful (since I had a different expectation).) 2. To do something with the history, for example to rename "file" to "new_file" also in the whole history, a new repository (or a new branch) has to be created. Three possibilities: (a) Using the basic git-functionality, re-creating a repository by re-creating all commits (with appropriate changes) by "hand" or "script". (b) More convenient, the upcoming "git-filter-branch" apparently makes filtering out easier. (c) Or, apparently more powerful, with "cg-admin-rewritehis" (part of the cogito-tool) we have quite a powerful tool for creating a branch with a (re-created and modified) history (the documentation explicitely mentions how to remove a file from history --- that is, in the new branch). Hope that's correct. Thanks a lot to all! Oliver - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html