Tom Nijhof

Posted on Jan 17 • Updated on Jan 18

Remove merged branches from your local machine

#git #developer #programming #tutorial

Remove merged branches from your local machine

If you work with a remote Git repository, you might encounter a situation where you still have branches on your local machine, but those branches have been removed from the remote repository.

Open a bash terminal (if you are on Windows you will have git bash. CMD, and PowerShell will not work).
Run the following command:

    git fetch -p && git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -d

Let’s break down the command:

git fetch -p: This command fetches the branches and their commits from the remote repository to your local repository. The -p or --prune option removes any remote-tracking references (i.e., origin/branch-name) to branches that have been deleted on the remote repository.

&&: This is a logical AND operator. In the context of command-line operations, it means “execute the following command only if the previous command succeeded.”

git branch -vv: This command lists all local branches and their upstream branches. If a local branch’s upstream branch has been deleted, it will show [gone] next to it.

An example where deleted-branch is deleted, only-local-branch was never pushed to the remote repository, and main and test-branch are both local and remote.

|awk '/:gone]/{print $1}': This part of the command pipes (|) the output of the previous command to awk, a text processing utility. The awk command is programmed to match lines containing :gone] and print the first field ($1) of those lines, which is the branch name.

The result of git fetch -p && git branch -vv | awk ‘/: gone]/{print $1}’ given me only deleted-branch

| xargs git branch -d: This part of the command pipes the output of the previous command (i.e., the names of the branches to be deleted) to xargs, which executes the git branch -d command for each input. The git branch -d command deletes a branch.

So, in summary, this command fetches updates from the remote repository, identifies local branches whose upstream branches have been deleted, and deletes those local branches.

Bonus

This is the error if you try to run it during a merge

Top comments (24)

𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️ • Jan 19

Cool script, but personally I would feel a bit paranoid about just yeeting branches like that. I'd probably drop this into a script and make it so it opens a list of commands in vim or something so I could individually decide if I want to keep any of them after all

Tom Nijhof • Jan 19

It does check if the branches are related to a "gone" origin branch. If you have a branch without origin, it will stay. So only if the origin branch is merged or delete it will delete the local one

𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️ • Jan 19

Yea, but I can think of cases where that might happen where you still wouldn't want to delete the local branch. Knowing myself, I just think this looks like a massive foot-gun, and I'd add some safety features to protect myself from myself.

Tom Nijhof • Jan 19

Do you not work with feature branches? I normally make a branch for a feature and when I am done with it I merge

But in the name of science!! I added a commit to a local branch where the remote was merged and deleted. It gave me this error:

Meaning it is not possible to delete local branches that are commits ahead

𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️ • Jan 19

What if you create a branch for local use, push it by accident and delete it from the remote repository again? Wouldn't that then cause the local branch to get deleted as well?

Tom Nijhof • Jan 19

Not if there are still commits on the branch, it will give the same error with not fully merged

Julien Dephix • Jan 19

And if you're using a JetBrains product you have the simple and effective Git Branch Cleaner plugin.
I mapped it to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Delete so I get a modal which lists local branches that no longer have their remote equivalent. "select all" and "delete". Done!

Willian Ferreira Moya • Jan 17

Thanks! That's a great tip!
I'll start cleaning up my local branchs. My local branchs are a total mess, I'm starting to get loss on thing that I'm not working anymore, and this will help me do that fast!

Fábio Luiz Barbosa • Jan 22

I'm not sure how this will help, but I might be able to translate it to a PowerShell version if there is someone interested in that works a few tries and for the challenge as well. The main issue for me was how I could convert awk and xargs so far shorter that I was able to reach it was something like this:

git fetch -p; git branch -vv | ForEach-Object { if ($_ -match ':\s+gone\]') { git branch -d $_.Split(' ')[2] } }

Tom Nijhof • Jan 22

Thank you! Very useful for PowerShell users!!

Jeremiah Smith • Jan 22

This will work for PowerShell, cause posh-git is the bestest. Update it for your own use case (i.e. swap master for main). Also - I keep the first run as a lowercase -d and just scan the proposed branches to delete before I swap the git branch -d command to use a -D and run again.

git checkout master; git remote update origin --prune; git branch -vv | Select-String -Pattern ": gone]" | % { $_.toString().Trim().Split(" ")[0]} | % {git branch -d $_}

Pixelrella • Jan 18

Thanks for sharing! I appreciate that you took the time to break down the different parts of the commands. Your explanations were clear and concise.
Thanks to your descriptions, piping finally makes sense for me💡

ben ajaero • Jan 18

Thank you for the informative tutorial Tom!

This is definitely a useful workflow to clean things up.

I've been in situations where a branch is removed from origin but still exists locally, causing confusion down the line. Please keep up the great content. I'll be sure to check out other articles on your blog!