Migrate from Perforce to Git using Git P4

Learn how to migrate your Perforce project to Git with Git P4 Clone.

George Neguceanu

11 Jun 2025

Updated on

min read

Content

So, you've decided to migrate from Perforce to Git. Maybe you seek the flexibility of Git branches, are tired of Perforce's licensing model, or want better integration with modern tools like GitHub and GitLab. Whatever your reason, welcome to the world of distributed version control!

Before you hit "git p4 clone" and call it a day, let's walk through what this migration actually involves and how to install Git LFS.

migrating from Perforce to Git — Migrating from Perforce to Git and Anchorpoint app

Why move from Perforce to Git?

Perforce (Helix Core) is ideal for large binary files and enterprise teams, particularly those in AAA game development or visual effects. However, Git has become more popular for game development over the last five years thanks to:

Fast and lightweight branching and merging
Better collaboration with GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket
Tons of integrations and open-source tools
No lock in effects
No reconciliation times (Git status works fast on large repositories)
Standard for software development. Coders love it!

How to migrate: Step by step

1. Prepare your project

Make sure your Perforce workspace is clean and up-to-date.
Merge all streams into one, a main, for an easier migration.
Remove any unnecessary binaries, old temporary files, and Perforce-specific configurations. (.p4config, etc.).
Decide whether you want to bring over your entire history, only part of it, or start fresh.

2. Install the migration tools

For this type of migration we will use Git P4 Clone and Python.

Download and Install Git from git-scm.com/downloads default options.
Download and Instal Python from python.org/downloads (select at start “add python.exe to PATH” when installing)

Find the git-p4 file in the C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\libexec\git-core directory or the directory where you installed Git. Then, open the file with a text editor such as Notepad++ and on first line replace:

#!/usr/bin/python2 with
#!/usr/bin/env python

This is done so that Git P4 Clone will work properly with Python 3.

3. Clone your P4 project with Git P4 Clone

a) Right-click on the desktop or in a custom, empty folder that you created. Select "Open Git Bash Here" and type:

p4 login and type your Helix Core password. Then let's find out our depots with: p4 depots

If the command doesn't work for you, take a look at the Perforce Client depot structure.

List of p4 depots in the Perforce client

b) Based on the P4 depot results above or the Perforce client core depot structure, we will use depot testa and the main stream/branch depot in our example.

git p4 clone //test/main@all “name_of_the_folder”

Explanation of arguments: # main is stream (branch) from p4 # @all grabs all history or if you have a huge history, use @1-X, Import only changes 1 through X, e.g. 5. # "name_of_the_folder" the directory to be clone into

If you encounter any errors, make sure the name and structure of the depot are correct. This is usually verified using the p4 depots command.

c) Finally, rename your branch if is needed with the commands:

cd name_of_the_folder

git branch -m main

Git bash commands to migrate p4 to git — The Git bash commands for this migration

4. Push to remote

Before pushing to remote, you can clean up the project by converting .p4ignore to .gitignore, removing temporary folders, and renaming the main branch.

Next, decide if you will use a Git app, such as Anchorpoint or GitHub Desktop, to manage your project and push/pull to your remote servers. These apps handle Git LFS out of the box and provide a .gitignore based on your project instead of making you do this work yourself.

Our example project migrated to Git with history shown in Anchorpoint

To continue using Git Bash commands, open a new Git Bash window in your project folder and install Git LFS to properly handle large binary files.

1) First convert your .p4ignore file to a .gitignore file. Although they are similar, some flags won't work in a .gitignore file. Learn more about the .gitignore template here.

Once you are satisfied with the file, commit it.

git commit -m 'added .gitignore'

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2) Next, we need to install Git LFS to manage our large binary files. To do so, we must first scan our project using the following commands:

git lfs install

Then to scan the project with:

git lfs migrate info --everything

As you can see in the image, we have a lot of PNG and WAV binary files. Since these will be the main files, I will import them as Git LFS objects.

git lfs migrate import --include="*.png,*.wav" --everything

All these files will be migrated to Git LFS objects, and a .gitattributes file will be created for future commits to handle these files as Git LFS.

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3) Finally, push to a remote repository, such as GitHub, with:

git remote add origin https://github.com/your-org/your-repo.git

git push -u origin main

Final thoughts

Run a migration on a small project first.
Decide how much of the project's history you want to import. Do you want to import all of the project's history from the past four years?
Choose the right cloud provider. We recommend Azure DevOps for large projects and GitHub for smaller ones. If you have your own servers, we recommend Gitea.
If you rely heavily on file locking, use Git apps like Anchorpoint, Fork or SourceTree which handle this feature by default.
Read the official documentation for advanced migration options and updates between the P4 and Git repos at git-scm.com/docs/git-p4 .

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