There are a number of different ways to download one or more files from Git or GitHub.

• Download files using the git checkout command
• Download files using the git fetch command (this article)
• Download files using the git pull command
• Download a single file from GitHub

Before you can checkout, pull or fetch files, you'll need to use the git clone command to clone an origin Git repository to a directory on your local PC.

The git checkout, git pull and git fetch commands can be used to download files in a repository to the currently selected branch of a cloned repository. 

The most basic way to use Git is to use the git clone command to clone a repository (such as example.git) to a directory on your PC (such as /home/john.doe/git), make a change to a file in the cloned repository on your PC (such as example.txt), use the git commit command to commit the change to the file, and to then use the git push command to upload the file to the origin Git repository.

AVOID TROUBLE

If your branch already contains a file that is also in the repository, and there are differences between the files, git pull will attempt to integrate and merge the differences into the files in your branch.

git fetch will download but not merge or integrate any differences between similar files

The git branch command with the -a or --all flag can be used to display all of the branches in the repository. The wildcard character is used to identify the branch you are currently using (master in this example).

~]# git branch --all
  development
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/feat/logging
  remotes/origin/master

The git pull command without any options will pull files from the origin to your currently selected branch.

git fetch

Or you can include origin and the name of your currently selected branch (master in this example).

git fetch origin master

The prior command will return "Already up-to-date" if your the files in your currently selected branch are the same revision as the files in the origin Git repository.

Already up-to-date.

The -q or --quiet option can be used to suppress output.

git fetch --quiet