At v2.19.0 I was trying to clone a fetch just a single directory: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/600079/how-do-i-clone-a-subdirectory-only-of-a-git-repository/52269934#52269934 I got really close with: git clone --depth 1 --no-checkout --filter=blob:none \ "file://$(pwd)/server_repo" local_repo cd local_repo git checkout master -- mydir/ The only missing thing is that uneeded tree objects are still being fetched. If I had a: git clone --filter=none for example then that would be done. Nothing major since those are small, but just looking for the perfect command :-)