Why a Git Client Still Matters

Git is everywhere. Most developers know their way around the command line, so the idea of paying for a desktop client can feel unnecessary. But the question shouldn’t be whether you can get by with Git — it’s whether you can use it powerfully, productively, and without friction.

Tower, built by a team of nine over the last decade, focuses on exactly that. The Mac client has recently gained an undo feature that brings CMD+Z to Git operations. Windows support for undo is planned. If you accidentally delete a branch, botch a merge, discard a change, or publish something too early, you can simply hit CMD+Z to reverse it — no need to remember which specialized reset or reflog command fits the situation.

Dragging Your Way Through Interactive Rebase

Interactive Rebase is one of Git’s most useful advanced features. It lets you edit old commit messages and changesets, squash commits together, reorder them, or remove commits entirely. On the command line, though, it’s fiddly enough to scare off beginners and trip up experienced developers.

Tower integrates Interactive Rebase directly into the commit history view. Instead of typing commands, you drag and drop to reorder commits or choose menu options for the rest. That single change makes a feature that many developers would never touch on the CLI into something usable daily.

Getting Things Done Without Digging Around

Much of a developer’s time goes toward searching — for the right branch, the right file, the right commit. Tower’s Quick Action dialog accepts almost any input and offers the appropriate action immediately. Type a branch name and you can check it out; type a file name and you can open its File History; paste a commit hash and you can inspect its details. It keeps your hands on the keyboard and cuts out the sifting.

There are other conveniences that make the client feel less like a wrapper and more like a productivity tool:

  • Connected accounts: Link GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Azure DevOps once, and authentication is handled from then on. No more juggling tokens, usernames, or SSH keys when cloning or syncing.
  • Line-level staging: You can stage, unstage, or discard individual hunks and lines, which makes it easier to keep each commit scoped to a single topic.
  • Redesigned diff viewer: A recent overhaul highlights inline changes, toggles whitespace visibility, can show the full file, and supports customizable themes.
  • Automatic housekeeping: Tower handles routine fetching and automatically stages uncommitted changes before pulling, switching branches, or merging — so you don’t have to remember.

Making Merge Conflicts Less Painful

When a merge or rebase stops with conflicts, the first questions are usually about what went wrong and which changes belong to whom. Tower can’t answer the existential “why me,” but its Conflict Wizard gives a visual breakdown of where each change came from. You can resolve the issue by picking a side or launching a dedicated merge tool. Seeing conflicts laid out clearly is far less intimidating than working through abstract conflict markers.

Tower is available as a 30-day free trial from the company’s website, and students and teachers can use it free of charge.