Why do I see a deleted remote branch?

Question

I have a remote repository and 2 clones.
I create a branch in one of the clones e.g. test. I do some work and 2 commits. I merge to master branch and push -u the branch.
I do a git pull in the other clone.
I see both master and test.
In the first clone project I do:
git origin :test to delete test branch on remote repository.
test is deleted on remote repos.
I do git branch -D test and the test branch is deleted locally as well.
If I do git branch -a I get:

*master   remotes/origin/master     

Now in the second repository I do a git pull.
On the pull the local test seems to be deleted but git seems to "think" that the remote test branch still exist.
If I do git branch -a I get:

* master     remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master     remotes/origin/master     remotes/origin/test     

Why does the deleted test branch appear as a remote branch?

Answer 1

The default options for git fetch (and consequently git pull) do not prune deleted remote branches. I'm not sure what the logic behind this default is. In any case, to prune deleted remote branches, either fetch with

git fetch -p 

or run

git remote prune [-n] <name> 

explicitly. With the -n flag, it will report which branches will be pruned, but not actually prune them. See git-fetch(1) and git-remote(1) for more information.

Answer 2

Try using this command git remote prune origin. The deleted branch should disappear. This should remove local references to remote branches.