Once a directory is renamed, "git log" no longer shows its history, unless you force it to, by using "git log --follow".
Is there a way to force the "history" function on the GitHub web UI to use "--follow"?
Alternatively - is there any way to see pre-rename history on GitHub?
Update June 2022: GitHub now supports viewing commit history across file renames and moves!
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2011: This was requested in 2009 (Request 129), and then in 2010 (Request 897), and then in 2021 (github/feedback discussion 6964):
I like this.
There could be other issues preventing us from plopping the--followargument in.
I'll take a look and let you know.
... and then nothing for now.
Note: Git 2.6+ (Q3 2015) will propose that in command line: see "Why does git log not default to git log --follow?"
Note: Git 2.6.0 has been released and includes this feature. Following path changes in the log command can be enabled by setting the log.follow config option to true as in:
git config log.follow true 
I wrote a chrome extension to enable this. Source on github.
I've sent a mail to [email protected] (salutations removed):
Will "git --follow" functionality ever be implemented on Github? If yes, where can I track its progress?
(By "git --follow", I mean a way to easily see the object revisions before a rename. Currently, when an item is renamed, Github doesn't offer an easy way to display the directory / file history.)
Response:
> Will "git --follow" functionality ever be implemented on Github? If yes, where can I track its progress?
This is something a few other users have requested as well -- we might add it in the future. We currently don't have a public issue tracker, but I'll put another +1 next to it on the Feature Request List™ for the team to see.
So, "git --follow" is unfortunately not supported yet.
To get such functionality in the meantime, I guess you could write a user script that looks up the hash of the parent object, (recursively) look up its history and render the result.
