Rebase is copying a series of commits and pasting them onto somewhere else. By default it will copy commits and apply them onto the new upstream. In other word

Rebase is copying a series of commits and pasting them onto somewhere else. By default it will copy commits and apply them onto the new upstream. In other words, go from old your master master ----*----*----A----B----C----D \ \ new \ master \----*----* to old your old master master ----*----*----A----B----C----D \ \ new your \ master master \----*----*----A'---B'---C'---D' Interactive rebase allows you to choose to reorder, rename, combine or drop those commits A, B, C, D as they are applied to new master.