windows github tool - use branch unpublish or delete?

Question

I'm new to Github and I've been using the windows github tool which has proved a great help and handled a lot of things like SSH keys, prompts commits, discard a commit, revert commit, and it has a combined mechanism of pull+merge & push (sync), and a lot!

I'm learning it and trying to get its internal git command level executions. The other day, I merged a hotfix branch and then wanted to delete it -

git branch -d hotfix

I need to know how to delete it from the server as well. What are the git equivalents of the following two actions available in manage branch in the windows tool -

• Unpublish a branch - remove only from the server
• Delete a branch - remove locally and on server

Another thing I doubt is that the above git command was unable to remove the branch locally. I executed it, it removed the branch (didn't show in $ git branch) but if I restart the tool, the branch was still there! Was that a glitch?

If someone has been using these, can you pls suggest the best approach (I don't want to be totally dependent on the tool, I want to learn git as well).

Answer 1

In addition to

git branch -d hotfix

you also can remove it from GitHub:

git push origin --delete hotfix

You can see more at "How do I delete a Git branch both locally and in GitHub?"

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If you have already deleted branches locally, a simple:

git push --prune origin

is enough to clean those same branches on your GitHub repo.

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The opposite situation is when you have deleted branches on GitHub, while they are still on your local repo.
In that case:

git remote prune origin

See "cleaning up old remote git branches".