How do I checkout only one folder from my repository?

[John Garcia]

A Bitbucket subscriber writes:

Hi,
I want to be able to pull only a specific file folder from the repo after
I have done a git init in a particular folder on my local machine.
I have several hundred folders from which I am interested in only one at a

time for a deployment.
However, I have not been able to come across any git command that enables
me to do so.

[John Garcia · Accepted solution]

It's important to remember that every time you clone or checkout a repository, a full copy of (at least) the entire repository's state at the specified commit is delivered to your machine.

Considering that, you can do the following:

git clone <repo-url> --depth 1 --bare 
git --work-tree=/path/to/checkout checkout HEAD -- sub/directory

The first line will clone the full current state of your repository, omitting any history, without creating a work-folder.

The second line unpacks the folder desired.

We strongly recommend making any commits to the files in this state; it's much better to work on a full copy of a working directory.