Transfer projects

Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Transfer a project to another namespace

When you transfer a project to another namespace, you move the project to a different group. All of the project’s components (such as issues, merge requests, pipelines, and dashboards) move with the transferred project. The project’s path also changes, so make sure to update the URLs to the project components where necessary.

New project-level labels are created for issues and merge requests if matching group labels don’t already exist in the target namespace.

caution
Errors during the transfer process may lead to data loss of the project’s components or dependencies of end users.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Maintainer role for the group you are transferring to.
  • You must be the Owner of the project you transfer.
  • The group must allow creation of new projects.
  • The project must not contain any container images.
  • The project must not have a security policy. If a security policy is assigned to the project, it is automatically unassigned during the transfer.

  • If the root namespace changes, you must remove npm packages that follow the naming convention from the project. After you transfer the project you can either:

    • Update the package scope with the new root namespace path, and publish it again to the project.
    • Republish the package to the project without updating the root namespace path, which causes the package to no longer follow the naming convention. If you republish the package without updating the root namespace path, it will not be available for the instance endpoint.

To transfer a project:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Advanced.
  4. Under Transfer project, choose the namespace to transfer the project to.
  5. Select Transfer project.
  6. Enter the project’s name and select Confirm.

You are redirected to the project’s new page and GitLab applies a redirect. For more information about repository redirects, see What happens when a repository path changes.

note
If you are an administrator, you can also use the administration interface to move any project to any namespace.

Transferring a GitLab.com project to a different subscription tier

When you transfer a project from a namespace licensed for GitLab.com Premium or Ultimate to GitLab Free:

Troubleshooting

When working with project settings, you might encounter the following issues, or require alternate methods to complete specific tasks.

Transfer a project through console

If transferring a project through the UI or API is not working, you can attempt the transfer in a Rails console session. 

p = Project.find_by_full_path('<project_path>')

# To set the owner of the project
current_user = p.creator

# Namespace where you want this to be moved
namespace = Namespace.find_by_full_path("<new_namespace>")

Projects::TransferService.new(p, current_user).execute(namespace)