github - Clone only the .git directory of a git repo

Question

I have a repo in sync with google Drive, but I had the .git directory ignored so it is now uploaded to Google Drive.

Recently I formatted my Gentoo machine and after I had all Google Drive files synced again I realized the .git directory was not there.

The problem is I do not remember if I had some unstagged/uncommited changes in local not pushed to github.

I have been searching but I only found answers for the opposite question (Cloning without the .git directory)

• How do I clone a subdirectory only of a Git repository?
• Cloning only a subdirectory with git
• How to clone git repository only some directories?
• Is it possible to clone only part of a git project?
• Git Clone: Just the files, please?
• Git clone without .git directory

I do not want to make a git clone of my repo until I am sure that possible local changes are not going to be loss.

Is there any way of cloning only the .git folder and then push any local changes that I may have in my machine?

Answer 1

The one-step solution would be:

git clone --no-checkout <repo_url>

or if you already have an empty dir for it,

cd myrepo
git clone --no-checkout <repo_url> .