How to prune local tracking branches that do not exist on remote anymore

Question

With git remote prune origin I can remove the local branches that are not  on the remote any more   But I also want to remove local branches that were created from those remote branches  a check if they are unmerged would be nice    How can I do this

User · Answer

Following is an adaptation of  wisbucky s answer for Windows users   for  f  tokens 1   i in   git branch -vv    findstr    gone     DO git branch  i -d  I use posh-git and unfortunately PS doesn t like the naked for  so I created a plain  ol command script named PruneOrphanBranches cmd    ECHO OFF for  f  tokens 1    i in   git branch -vv    findstr    gone     DO CALL  ProcessBranch   i  1  GOTO  EOF   ProcessBranch IF  I   2     -d        git branch  1  2   ELSE       CALL  OutputMessage  1   GOTO  EOF   OutputMessage ECHO Will delete branch   1   GOTO  EOF   EOF   Call it with no parameters to see a list  and then call it with  -d  to perform the actual deletion or  -D  for any branches that are not fully merged but which you want to delete anyway

User · Answer

It will list the local branches whose remote tracking branch is deleted from remote    git remote prune origin --dry-run   If you want to de-reference these local branches from local which are un tracked    git remote prune origin

User · Answer

Amidst the information presented by git help fetch  there is this little item    -p  --prune         After fetching  remove any remote-tracking branches which no longer exist on the remote    So  perhaps  git fetch -p is what you are looking for   EDIT  Ok  for those still debating this answer 3 years after the fact  here s a little more information on why I presented this answer     First  the OP says they want to  remove also those local branches that were created from those remote branches  that are not any more on the remote    This is not unambiguously possible in git  Here s an example   Let s say I have a repo on a central server  and it has two branches  called A and B  If I clone that repo to my local system  my clone will have local refs  not actual branches yet  called origin A and origin B  Now let s say I do the following   git checkout -b A origin A git checkout -b Z origin B git checkout -b C  lt some hash gt    The pertinent facts here are that I for some reason chose to create a branch on my local repo that has a different name than its origin  and I also have a local branch that does not  yet  exist on the origin repo   Now let s say I remove both the A and B branches on the remote repo and update my local repo  git fetch of some form   which causes my local refs origin A and origin B to disappear  Now  my local repo has three branches still  A  Z  and C  None of these have a corresponding branch on the remote repo  Two of them were  created from     remote branches   but even if I know that there used to be a branch called B on the origin  I have no way to know that Z was created from B  because it was renamed in the process  probably for a good reason  So  really  without some external process recording branch origin metadata  or a human who knows the history  it is impossible to tell which of the three branches  if any  the OP is targeting for removal  Without some external information that git does not automatically maintain for you  git fetch -p is about as close as you can get  and any automatic method for literally attempting what the OP asked runs the risk of either deleting too many branches  or missing some that the OP would otherwise want deleted   There are other scenarios  as well  such as if I create three separate branches off origin A to test three different approaches to something  and then origin A goes away  Now I have three branches  which obviously can t all match name-wise  but they were created from origin A  and so a literal interpretation of the OPs question would require removing all three  However  that may not be desirable  if you could even find a reliable way to match them

User · Answer

After pruning  you can get the list of remote branches with git branch -r   The list of branches with their remote tracking branch can be retrieved with git branch -vv   So using these two lists you can find the remote tracking branches that are not in the list of remotes  This line should do the trick  requires bash or zsh  won t work with standard Bourne shell   git branch -r   awk   print  1     egrep -v -f  dev fd 0  lt  git branch -vv   grep origin    awk   print  1     xargs git branch -d  This string gets the list of remote branches and passes it into egrep through the standard input   And filters the branches that have a remote tracking branch  using git branch -vv and filtering for those that have origin  then getting the first column of that output which will be the branch name   Finally passing all the branch names into the delete branch command  Since it is using the -d option  it will not delete branches that have not been merged into the branch that you are on when you run this command  Also remember that you ll need to run git fetch --prune first  otherwise git branch -r will still see the remote branches

User · Answer

I did not find the answers here usefull when the remote itself does not exist anymore  I kept seing branches of remotes that did not exist anymore  but did not find a git command to delete them  The solution for me was to go to the  git refs remotes directory and directly delete the files that are not relevant any more  The file structure is very easy to understand  It is the same structure as what you see with git branch -r

User · Answer

If using Windows and Powershell  you can use the following to delete all local branches that have been merged into the branch currently checked out   git branch --merged         0  -ne              trim         git branch -d       Explanation   Lists the current branch and the branches that have been merged into it Filters out the current branch Cleans up any leading or trailing spaces from the git output for each remaining branch name Deletes the merged local branches   It s worth running git branch --merged by itself first just to make sure it s only going to remove what you expect it to    Ported automated from http   railsware com blog 2014 08 11 git-housekeeping-tutorial-clean-up-outdated-branches-in-local-and-remote-repositories

User · Answer

Here is my solution    git fetch -p git branch -vv   grep    gone    awk   print  1     xargs git branch -d    -p is to remove any remote-tracking references that no longer exist on the remote  So first step will remove references to remote branches  -vv is for showing sha1 and commit subject line for each head  along with relationship to upstream branch  if any   2nd step will get all the local branches and grep command will filter out branches that have been deleted

User · Answer

check for targets for target in   git branch   grep -Eiv  quot master develop branchYouWantToLive quot    do echo  target  done run with for  amp  subcommands for target in   git branch   grep -Eiv  quot master develop branchYouWantToLive quot    do git branch -D  target  done you can extend other something works about branches

User · Answer

This works for me using git 2 21 0 - it deletes local tracking branches which are merged into HEAD where I have previously --set-upstream on push  I use push default upstream because it works best with multiple remotes  and that upstream branch has since been deleted by a fetch --prune  or implicitly if fetch prune true in git config   git branch -vv --merged   grep    gone     awk   print  1     xargs git branch -d  The use of --merged and -d make this a very  safe  delete  A more aggressive version could drop the --merged and use -D

User · Answer

Delete any branch that isn t up to date with master  git co master  amp  amp  git branch   sed s          xargs git branch -d 2 gt   dev null

User · Answer

I reached this page seeking the answer for  how do I delete locally checked out branches that no longer have an upstream branch   I also did not care whether or not the local branch had been merged in yet  since piping into git branch -d will simply warn instead of deleting unmerged local branches   git branch -a   grep origin   tr -s       cut -d     -f3   egrep -v -f  dev fd 0  lt  git branch -a   grep -v origin    grep branch prefix that I care about   xargs git branch -d    translation   git branch -a   grep origin   tr -s       cut -d     -f3    this finds all remote branch names minus the  remote origin   part      lt  git branch -a   grep -v origin     this finds all local branch names and redirects it into the previous command     egrep -v -f  dev fd 0 STUFF    this is doing some weird magic that I m grokking as  take the set difference from whatever was piped in        overall translation   STUFF TO CONSIDER    egrep magic  lt  STUFF TO REMOVE FROM CONSIDERATION    do cool things with resulting stuff

User · Answer

To remove remote branches    git remote prune origin   To remove local branches that are already merged    git branch -D   git branch --merged

User · Answer

This will delete the local branches for which the remote tracking branches have been pruned   Make sure you are on master branch    git checkout master git branch -vv   grep    gone     awk   print  1     xargs git branch -d     Details     git branch -vv displays  gone  for local branches that the remote has been pruned   mybranch abc1234  origin mybranch  gone  commit comments  -d will check if it has been merged  -D will delete it regardless   error  The branch  mybranch  is not fully merged

User · Answer

You can use this command   git branch --merged master   grep -v     master    xargs -n 1 git branch -d   Git Clean  Delete Already-Merged Branches including break down of command

User · Answer

Based on the answers above I m using this shorter one liner   git remote prune origin   awk  BEGIN FS  origin     pruned  print  2     xargs -r git branch -d   Also  if you already pruned and have local dangling branches  then this will clean them up   git branch -vv   awk       gone  print  1     xargs -r git branch -d

User · Answer

Windows Solution  For Microsoft Windows Powershell   git checkout master  git remote update origin --prune  git branch -vv   Select-String -Pattern    gone            toString   Trim   Split      0        git branch -d      Explaination  git checkout master switches to the master branch  git remote update origin --prune prunes remote branches  git branch -vv gets a verbose output of all branches  git reference    Select-String -Pattern    gone   gets only the records where they have been removed from remote          toString   Split      0   get the branch name     git branch -d     deletes the branch

User · Answer

I have turned the accepted answer into a robust script  You ll find it in my git-extensions repository     git-prune --help Remove old local branches that do not exist in  lt remote gt  any more  With --test  only print which local branches would be deleted  Usage  git-prune  -t --test -f --force   lt remote gt

User · Answer

I m pretty sure that git remote prune origin is what you want   You can run it as git remote prune origin --dry-run to see what it would do without making any changes

User · Answer

not sure how to do it all at once  but git git branch -d  lt branchname gt  will delete a local branch ONLY if it is completely merged  Note the lowercase d   git branch -D  lt branchname gt   note the capital D  will delete a local branch regardless of its merged status

User · Answer

As  tzacks notes    there is an npm package that is handy for this   Just do   npx git-removed-branches --prune    I would have commented but not enough reputation

User · Answer

Using the GUI  Manual procedure  but quick and easy     git gui   Select  Branch -  Delete   You can select multiple branches with ctrl-click  windows  and remove all of them

User · Answer

There s a neat NPM package that does it for you  and it should work cross platform    Install it with  npm install -g git-removed-branches  And then git removed-branches will show you all the stale local branches  and git removed-branches --prune to actually delete them   More info here

User · Answer

Try this in git bash  to fetch and prune references to deleted branches  and then prune the local branches that were tracking the removed ones   git fetch -p  amp  amp  git branch -d  git branch -vv   grep    gone     awk   print  1     xargs    Remember to checkout first a branch that won t be deleted  so that does not block the deleting of the branch

User · Answer

Schleis  variant does not work for me  Ubuntu 12 04   so let me propose my  clear and shiny    variants   Variant 1  I would prefer this option    git for-each-ref --format    refname short    upstream   refs heads    awk   2     refs  remotes     xargs git branch -D    Variant 2   a  Dry-run   comm -23  lt   git branch   grep -v       grep -v       sort    lt   git br -r   awk -F       print  2     sort     awk   print  git branch -D    1     b  Remove branches   comm -23  lt   git branch   grep -v       grep -v       sort    lt   git br -r   awk -F       print  2     sort     xargs git branch -D

User · Answer

Based on the answers above I came with this one line solution   git remote prune origin  git branch -r   awk   print  1     egrep -v -f  dev fd 0  lt  git branch -vv   grep origin    awk   print  1     xargs git branch -d

User · Answer

There doesn t seem to be a safe one-liner  too many edge cases  like a branch having  master  as part of its name  etc   Safest is these steps     git branch -vv   grep  gone    gt  stale branches txt  view the file and remove lines for branches you want to keep  such as master branch    you don t need to edit the contents of any line awk   print  1   stale branches txt   xargs git branch -d

User · Answer

Even shorter and safer one-liner   git branch -d   git branch --merged   cut -c 3-   grep -v master    Be sure to checkout to branch that is not merged yet  before run it  Because you can not delete branch that you are currently checked in

User · Answer

If you want to delete all local branches that are already merged into master  you can use the following command   git branch --merged master   grep -v        master     xargs git branch -d   More info

User · Answer

Using a variant on  wisbucky s answer  I added the following as an alias to my    gitconfig file   pruneitgood     f           git remote prune origin        git branch -vv   perl -nae  system qw git branch -d    F 0   if  F 3  eq q gone          f    With this  a simple git pruneitgood will clean up both local  amp  remote branches that are no longer needed after merges

User · Answer

One can configure Git to automatically remove references to deleted remote branches when fetching   git config --global fetch prune true   When calling git fetch or git pull afterwards  references to deleted remote branches get removed automatically

User · Answer

In Powershell    git branch -D  git branch --merged         trim

User · Answer

The Powershell Version of git branch --merged master   grep -v        master     xargs git branch -d  git branch --merged master      if    -notmatch      master    git branch -d       Trim         This will remove any local branches that have been merged into master  while you are on the master branch   git checkout master to switch

User · Answer

I wanted something that would purge all local branches that were tracking a remote branch  on origin  where the remote branch has been deleted  gone   I did not want to delete local branches that were never set up to track a remote branch  i e   my local dev branches   Also  I wanted a simple one-liner that just uses git  or other simple CLI tools  rather than writing custom scripts  I ended up using a bit of grep and awk to make this simple command  then added it as an alias in my    gitconfig     alias    prune-branches    git remote prune origin  amp  amp  git branch -vv   grep    gone     awk   print  1     xargs -r git branch -D   Here is a git config --global     command for easily adding this as git prune-branches   git config --global alias prune-branches   git remote prune origin  amp  amp  git branch -vv   grep        gone         awk       print  1         xargs -r git branch -d    NOTE  Use of the -D flag to git branch can be very dangerous  So  in the config command above I use the -d option to git branch rather than -D  I use -D in my actual config  I use -D because I don t want to hear Git complain about unmerged branches  I just want them to go away  You may want this functionality as well  If so  simply use -D instead of -d at the end of that config command

[git] How to prune local tracking branches that do not exist on remote anymore

Examples related to git