Install gitup with Homebrew, MacPorts

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• gitup

Project history

The project began in 2011. Its README says it was originally created to manage a large collection of projects and deal with sporadic internet access, a very practical origin for a tool that fetches and fast-forwards many repositories.

The changelog shows steady evolution around Git safety and portability. Version 0.2 rewrote the backend to use GitPython instead of direct shell calls, version 0.3 added Python 3 support and safer fast-forward-only branch updating, and version 0.5 added recursion-depth control for discovering repositories in directories.

After a long 0.5.x line, version 0.5.2 in June 2025 added Python 3.13 support, dropped end-of-life Python versions, and switched project management to uv. That release kept the small utility aligned with newer Python packaging practice.

Adoption history

gitup's adoption is package-manager practical rather than hype-driven. It is installable from uv, pipx, pip, Homebrew, and MacPorts, and PyPI metadata points back to the GitHub repository, changelog, and issue tracker. Homebrew carries it as a stable formula for users who maintain many checkouts on macOS or Linux.

The tool remains valuable in environments where a developer, sysadmin, or package maintainer has many cloned repositories and wants predictable fetch or fast-forward behavior without writing a local shell loop.

How it is used

Practitioners pass one or more repository paths, pass a directory to discover repositories below it, or save paths as bookmarks. Running `gitup` without arguments updates bookmarked repositories, while options such as `--depth`, `--fetch-only`, and `--prune` tune how much discovery and branch updating happens.

The README emphasizes safety around dirty worktrees, diverged branches, detached HEADs, multiple remotes, and branches that cannot be fast-forwarded. That makes the tool useful for routine maintenance of many clones without forcing merges or rebases.

Why package nerds care

gitup is the sort of unglamorous tool package managers preserve because it solves a real local-maintenance problem. It turns a common package maintainer habit, checking every repository before work, into one command with guardrails.

Timeline

• 2011: v0.1 initial release.
• 2014: v0.2 rewrote the backend around GitPython.
• 2015: v0.3 added Python 3 support and safer fast-forward behavior.
• 2018: v0.5 added repository discovery depth control.
• 2025: v0.5.2 added Python 3.13 support and uv-based project management.

Related projects

• GitPython.
• uv, pipx, pip, Homebrew, and MacPorts packaging workflows.
• Git maintenance scripts for multi-repository workspaces.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/earwig/git-repo-updater
• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/gitup
• https://github.com/earwig/git-repo-updater
• https://pypi.org/project/gitup/
• https://pypi.org/pypi/gitup/json
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/earwig/git-repo-updater/main/CHANGELOG
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/earwig/git-repo-updater/main/README.md