---
stage: Create
group: Source Code
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
type: reference, howto
description: "Documentation on Git file blame."
---

# Git file blame **(FREE ALL)**

[Git blame](https://git-scm.com/docs/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. Go to your project's **Code > Repository**.
1. Select the file you want to review.
1. In the upper-right corner, select **Blame**.

When you select **Blame**, this information is displayed:

![Git blame output](img/file_blame_output_v12_6.png "Blame button output")

If you hover over a commit in the UI, the commit's precise date and time
are shown.

## Blame previous commit

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/19299) in GitLab 12.7.

To see earlier revisions of a specific line, select **View blame prior to this change**
until you've found the changes you're interested in viewing:

![Blame previous commit](img/file_blame_previous_commit_v12_7.png "Blame previous commit")

## 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, run the following command:

```shell
git blame README.md
```

The output looks similar to the following, which includes the commit time
in UTC format:

```shell
62e2353a (Achilleas Pipinellis     2019-07-11 14:52:18 +0300   1) [![build status](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/badges/master/build.svg)](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gitlab-docs/commits/master)
fb0fc7d6 (Achilleas Pipinellis     2016-11-07 22:21:22 +0100   2)
^764ca75 (Connor Shea              2016-10-05 23:40:24 -0600   3) # GitLab Documentation
^764ca75 (Connor Shea              2016-10-05 23:40:24 -0600   4)
0e62ed6d (Mike Jang                2019-11-26 21:44:53 +0000   5) This project hosts the repository used to generate the GitLab
0e62ed6d (Mike Jang                2019-11-26 21:44:53 +0000   6) documentation website and deployed to https://docs.gitlab.com. It uses the
```

## File blame through the API

You can also get this information over the [Git file blame REST API](../../../api/repository_files.md#get-file-blame-from-repository).