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Git file blame (FREE ALL)

Git blame provides more information about every line in a file, including the last modified time, author, and commit hash.

View blame for a file

Prerequisites:

  • The file type must be text-based. The GitLab UI does not display git blame results for binary files.

To view the blame for a file:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Repository.
  3. Select the file you want to review.
  4. In the upper-right corner, select Blame, and go to the line you want to see.

When you select Blame, this information is displayed:

Git blame output

To see the precise date and time of the commit, hover over the date. The vertical bar to the left of the user avatar shows the general age of the commit. The newest commits have a dark blue bar. As the age of the commit increases, the bar color changes to light gray.

View blame directly in the file view

Introduced in GitLab 16.7 with flags named graphql_git_blame, blob_blame_info and highlight_js_worker. Enabled by default.

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is available. To hide the feature, an administrator can disable the feature flag named blob_blame_info. On GitLab.com, this feature is available.

When this feature is enabled, you can additionally view blame for a file directly from the file page.

To do so:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Repository.
  3. Select the file you want to review.
  4. In the file header, select Blame, and go to the line you want to see.

Blame previous commit

To see earlier revisions of a specific line:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Repository.
  3. Select the file you want to review.
  4. In the upper-right corner, select Blame, and go to the line you want to see.
  5. Select View blame prior to this change ({doc-versions}) until you've found the changes you're interested in viewing.

Associated git command

If you're running git from the command line, the equivalent command is git blame <filename>. For example, if you want to find blame information about a README.md file in the local directory:

  1. Run this command git blame README.md.
  2. If the line you want to see is not in the first page of results, press Space until you find the line you want.
  3. To exit out of the results, press Q.

The git blame output in the CLI looks like this:

58233c4f1054c (Dan Rhodes           2022-05-13 07:02:20 +0000  1) ## Contributor License Agreement
b87768f435185 (Jamie Hurewitz       2017-10-31 18:09:23 +0000  2)
8e4c7f26317ff (Brett Walker         2023-10-20 17:53:25 +0000  3) Contributions to this repository are subject to the
58233c4f1054c (Dan Rhodes           2022-05-13 07:02:20 +0000  4)

The output includes:

  • The SHA of the commit.
  • The name of the committer.
  • The date and time in UTC format.
  • The line number.
  • The contents of the line.

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