Delete local Git branches after deleting them on the remote repo

Question

The quick way

git branch --merged | grep -v "\*" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

NB: if you're not on master, this has the potential to delete the branch. Keep reading for the "better way".

Make sure we keep master

You can ensure that master, or any other branch for that matter, doesn't get removed by greping for more. In that case you would go:

git branch --merged | grep -v "\*" | grep -v "YOUR_BRANCH_TO_KEEP" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

So if we wanted to keep master, develop and staging for instance, we would go:

git branch --merged | grep -v "\*" | grep -Ev "(\*|master|develop|staging)" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

Make this an alias

Since it's a bit long, you might want to add an alias to your .zshrc or .bashrc. Mine is called gbpurge (for git branches purge):

alias gbpurge='git branch --merged | grep -Ev "(\*|master|develop|staging)" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d'

Then reload your .bashrc or .zshrc:

. ~/.bashrc

or

. ~/.zshrc

I use the same flow with GitHub, and didn't find the previous answers satisfying me, as git branch --merged lists branches which were merged, but not every of them was removed remotely in my case. So, this worked for me:

git fetch --all -p; git branch -vv | grep ": gone]" | awk '{ print $1 }' | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

where:

• git fetch --all -p: update local branches status
• git branch -vv: list local branches status
• grep ": gone]": filter deleted ones
• awk '{ print $1 }': extract their names
• xargs -n 1 git branch -d: pass the name to the delete command

Note: if you prefer, you could use -D instead of -d, which enforces the delete.

For example:

someUsr@someHost:~/repo$ git branch -a
basic-testing
integration-for-tests
* master
origin
playground-for-tests
test-services
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/basic-testing
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/test-services

someUsr@someHost:~/repo$ git fetch --all -p; git branch -vv | grep ": gone]" | awk '{ print $1 }' | xargs -n 1 git branch -d
Fetching origin
Deleted branch integration-for-tests (was fbc609a).
Deleted branch playground-for-tests (was 584b900).

someUsr@someHost:~/repo$ git branch -a
basic-testing
* master
origin
test-services
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/basic-testing
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/test-services

Reference:

http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Remote-Branches

try:

git pull --prune

which deletes your local branch, if its corresponding remote branch is deleted.

Updated:

The statement above is not that correct.

In fact, running git pull --prune will only REMOVE the remote-tracking branches such like

remotes/origin/fff
remotes/origin/dev
remotes/origin/master

Then, you can run git branch -r to check the remote-tracking branches left on your machine. Suppose the left branches are:

origin/dev
origin/master

which means the branch origin/fff is deleted.

So, after running git pull --prune, just run:

git branch --merged | grep -vFf <(git branch -r | cut -d'/' -f2-)

you can find out all the local branches which:

1. have no correspoding remote branches any more;
2. can be removed safely.

then, <the command above> | xargs git branch -d can delete all of them.

This should work to avoid deleting the master and development branches with the accepted solution:

git branch --merged | egrep -v "^\*|master|development" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

For people using powershell, this is the equivalent to the answer above:

git branch -vv | Select-String -Pattern ': gone]' | ForEach-Object{($_ -split "\s+")[1]} | %{ git branch -D $_ }

1. Filter all the branches that are marked as gone
2. Call git branch -D on each of the found branches