Is there a simple way to delete all tracking branches whose remote equivalent no longer exists?
Example:
Branches (local and remote)
Locally, I only have a master branch. Now I need to work on bug-fix-a, so I check it out, work on it, and push changes to the remote. Next I do the same with bug-fix-b.
Branches (local and remote)
Now I have local branches master, bug-fix-a, bug-fix-b. The Master branch maintainer will merge my changes into master and delete all branches he has already merged.
So the current state is now:
Branches (local and remote)
Now I would like to call some command to delete branches (in this case bug-fix-a, bug-fix-b), which are no longer represented in the remote repository.
It would be something like the existing command git remote prune origin, but more like git local prune origin.
This question is related to
git
git-branch
I don't think there is a built-in command to do this, but it is safe to do the following:
git checkout master
git branch -d bug-fix-a
When you use -d, git will refuse to delete the branch unless it is completely merged into HEAD or its upstream remote-tracking branch. So, you could always loop over the output of git for-each-ref and try to delete each branch. The problem with that approach is that I suspect that you probably don't want bug-fix-d to be deleted just because origin/bug-fix-d contains its history. Instead, you could create a script something like the following:
#!/bin/sh
git checkout master &&
for r in $(git for-each-ref refs/heads --format='%(refname:short)')
do
if [ x$(git merge-base master "$r") = x$(git rev-parse --verify "$r") ]
then
if [ "$r" != "master" ]
then
git branch -d "$r"
fi
fi
done
Warning: I haven't tested this script - use only with care...
A simpler solution for Windows or others who don't want to/can't script the command line or who don't want to bother with PowerShell.
Dump the branch list into a file
git branch > branches.txt
(or git branch --merged > branches.txt, if you're the belt and suspenders type;
git branch -d will protect against deleting unmerged branches)
Open that file in your editor and combine all the lines (I used sublime text, so highlight all and press ctrl+j)
Add git branch -d ahead of your branch list.
Select all, copy, and paste (right click in windows cmd window) into the command line.
grep gone <(git branch -v) | cut -d ' ' -f 3 | xargs git branch -d
The above command can be used to fetch branches which are merged and deleted in remote and it deletes the local branch which no longer available in remote
I came up with this bash script. It always keep the branches develop, qa, master.
git-clear() {
git pull -a > /dev/null
local branches=$(git branch --merged | grep -v 'develop' | grep -v 'master' | grep -v 'qa' | sed 's/^\s*//')
branches=(${branches//;/ })
if [ -z $branches ]; then
echo 'No branches to delete...'
return;
fi
echo $branches
echo 'Do you want to delete these merged branches? (y/n)'
read yn
case $yn in
[^Yy]* ) return;;
esac
echo 'Deleting...'
git remote prune origin
echo $branches | xargs git branch -d
git branch -vv
}
I found the answer here: How can I delete all git branches which have been merged?
git branch --merged | grep -v "\*" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d
You can ensure that master, or any other branch for that matter, doesn't get removed by adding another grep after the first one. 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 -v "master" | grep -v "develop" | grep -v "staging" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d
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 -v "\*" | grep -v "master" | grep -v "develop" | grep -v "staging" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d'
Then reload your .bashrc or .zshrc:
. ~/.bashrc
or
. ~/.zshrc
Yet another answer, because none of the solutions suit my needs on elegance and cross-platformness:
Command to delete local branches not on remote:
for b in $(git for-each-ref --format='%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname:short)%(end)' refs/heads); do git branch -d $b; done
To integrate it with gitconfig so it can be run with git branch-prune:
Bash
git config --global alias.branch-prune '!git fetch -p && for b in $(git for-each-ref --format='\''%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname:short)%(end)'\'' refs/heads); do git branch -d $b; done'
PowerShell
git config --global alias.branch-prune '!git fetch -p && for b in $(git for-each-ref --format=''%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname:short)%(end)'' refs/heads); do git branch -d $b; done'
(Need help in finding a universal command for PowerShell and bash)
git branch-prune command to your gitgit for-each-ref--filter so no external dependencies needed~\.gitconfig. After executing this you can simply do git branch-pruneFor 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 $_}
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().Trim().Split(" ")[0]} get the branch name
% {git branch -d $_} deletes the branch
Based on info above, this worked for me:
git br -d `git br -vv | grep ': gone] ' | awk '{print $1}' | xargs`
It removes all local branches with are ': gone] ' on remote.
Based on Git Tip: Deleting Old Local Branches, which looks similar to jason.rickman's solution I implemented a custom command for this purpose called git gone using Bash:
$ git gone
usage: git gone [-pndD] [<branch>=origin]
OPTIONS
-p prune remote branch
-n dry run: list the gone branches
-d delete the gone branches
-D delete the gone branches forcefully
EXAMPLES
git gone -pn prune and dry run
git gone -d delete the gone branches
git gone -pn combines the pruning and listing the "gone" branches:
$ git gone -pn
bport/fix-server-broadcast b472d5d2b [origin/bport/fix-server-broadcast: gone] Bump modules
fport/rangepos 45c857d15 [origin/fport/rangepos: gone] Bump modules
Then you can pull the trigger using git gone -d or git gone -D.
"$BRANCH/.*: gone]" where $BRANCH would normally be origin. This probably won't work if your Git output is localized to French etc.Here's a solution that I use for the fish shell. Tested on Mac OS X 10.11.5, fish 2.3.0 and git 2.8.3.
function git_clean_branches
set base_branch develop
# work from our base branch
git checkout $base_branch
# remove local tracking branches where the remote branch is gone
git fetch -p
# find all local branches that have been merged into the base branch
# and delete any without a corresponding remote branch
set local
for f in (git branch --merged $base_branch | grep -v "\(master\|$base_branch\|\*\)" | awk '/\s*\w*\s*/ {print $1}')
set local $local $f
end
set remote
for f in (git branch -r | xargs basename)
set remote $remote $f
end
for f in $local
echo $remote | grep --quiet "\s$f\s"
if [ $status -gt 0 ]
git branch -d $f
end
end
end
A few notes:
Make sure to set the correct base_branch. In this case I use develop as the base branch, but it could be anything.
This part is very important: grep -v "\(master\|$base_branch\|\*\)". It ensures that you don't delete master or your base branch.
I use git branch -d <branch> as an extra precaution, so as to not delete any branch that has not been fully merged with upstream or current HEAD.
An easy way to test is to replace git branch -d $f with echo "will delete $f".
I suppose I should also add: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Yet-another-answer for the pile, drawing heavily from Patrick's answer (which I like because it seems to do away with any ambiguity about where gone] will match in the git branch output) but adding a *nix bent.
In its simplest form:
git branch --list --format \
"%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname:short)%(end)" \
| xargs git branch -D
I have this wrapped up in a git-gone script on my path:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
action() {
${DELETE} && xargs git branch -D || cat
}
get_gone() {
git branch --list --format \
"%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname:short)%(end)"
}
main() {
DELETE=false
while [ $# -gt 0 ] ; do
case "${1}" in
(-[dD] | --delete) DELETE=true ;;
esac
shift
done
get_gone | action
}
main "${@}"
NB - The --format option seems to be fairly new; I needed to upgrade git from 2.10.something to 2.16.3 to get it.
EDIT: tweaked to include suggestion about refname:short from Benjamin W.
NB2 - I've only tested in bash, hence the hashbang, but probably portable to sh.
Most of these answers do not actually answer the original question. I did a bunch of digging and this was the cleanest solution I found. Here is a slightly more thorough version of that answer:
git checkout mastergit fetch -p && git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -dExplanation:
Works by pruning your tracking branches then deleting the local ones that show they are "gone" in git branch -vv.
Notes:
If your language is set to something other than English you will need to change gone to the appropriate word. Branches that are local only will not be touched. Branches that have been deleted on remote but were not merged will show a notification but not be deleted on local. If you want to delete those as well change -d to -D.
This is gonna delete all the remote branches that are not present locally (in ruby):
bs = `git branch`.split; bs2 = `git branch -r | grep origin`.split.reject { |b| bs.include?(b.split('/')[1..-1].join('/')) }; bs2.each { |b| puts `git push origin --delete #{b.split('/')[1..-1].join('/')}` }
Explained:
# local branches
bs = `git branch`.split
# remote branches
bs2 = `git branch -r | grep origin`.split
# reject the branches that are present locally (removes origin/ in front)
bs2.reject! { |b| bs.include?(b.split('/')[1..-1].join('/')) }
# deletes the branches (removes origin/ in front)
bs2.each { |b| puts `git push origin --delete #{b.split('/')[1..-1].join('/')}` }
Remove all branches that have been merged into master, but don't try to remove master itself:
git checkout master && git pull origin master && git fetch -p && git branch -d $(git branch --merged | grep master -v)
or add an alias:
alias gitcleanlocal="git checkout master && git pull origin master && git fetch -p && git branch -d $(git branch --merged | grep master -v)"
Explanation:
git checkout master checkout master branch
git pull origin master ensure local branch has all remote changes merged
git fetch -p remove references to remote branches that have been deleted
git branch -d $(git branch master --merged | grep master -v) delete all branches that have been merged into master, but don't try to remove master itself
May be this command is what you want.
After run:
git remote prune origin
then run:
diff <(git branch | sed -e 's/*/ /g') <(git branch -r | sed -e 's/origin\///g') | grep '^<'
this will show all branch which not in (git branch -r) but in (git branch)
This method have a problem, it will also show the branch in local which have not pushed before
I use a short method to do the trick, I recommend you to do the same as it could save some hours & give you more visibility
Just add the following snippet into your .bashrc (.bashprofile on macos).
git-cleaner() { git fetch --all --prune && git branch --merged | grep -v -E "\bmaster|preprod|dmz\b" | xargs -n 1 git branch -d ;};
- Fetch all remotes
- Get only merged branches from git
- Remove from this list the "protected / important" branches
- Remove the rest (e.g, clean and merged branches)
You'll have to edit the grep regex in order to fit to your needs (here, it prevent master, preprod and dmz from deletion)
None of this was really right for me. 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.
This is ultimately what ended up in my ~/.gitconfig:
[alias]
prune-branches = !git remote prune origin && 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 && git branch -vv | grep '"'"': gone]'"'"' | awk '"'"'{print $1}'"'"' | xargs -r git branch -d'
NOTE: In the config command, I use the -d option to git branch rather than -D, as I do in my actual config. I use -D because I don't want to hear Git complain about unmerged branches. You may want this functionality as well. If so, simply use -D instead of -d at the end of that config command.
Remove ALL local branches that are not on remote
git fetch -p && git branch -vv | grep ': gone]' | awk '{print $1}' | xargs git branch -D
Remove ALL local branches that are not on remote AND that are fully merged AND that are not used as said in many answers before.
git fetch -p && git branch --merged | grep -v '*' | grep -v 'master' | xargs git branch -d
git fetch -p will prune all branches no longer existing on remotegit branch -vv will print local branches and pruned branch will be tagged with gonegrep ': gone]' selects only branch that are goneawk '{print $1}' filter the output to display only the name of the branchesxargs git branch -D will loop over all lines (branches) and force remove this branchWhy git branch -D and not git branch -d else you will have for branches that are not fully merged.
error: The branch 'xxx' is not fully merged.
This will delete all the merged local branched except local master reference and the one currently being used:
git branch --merged | grep -v "*" | grep -v "master" | xargs git branch -d
And this will delete all the branches having already been removed from the remote repository referenced by "origin", but are still locally available in "remotes/origin".
git remote prune origin
The pattern matching for "gone" in most of the other solutions was a little scary for me. To be safer, this uses the --format flag to pull out each branch's upstream tracking status.
I needed a Windows-friendly version, so this deletes all branches that are listed as "gone" using Powershell:
git branch --list --format "%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname:short)%(end)" |
? { $_ -ne "" } |
% { git branch -D $_ }
The first line lists the name of local branches whose upstream branch is "gone". The next line removes blank lines (which are output for branches that aren't "gone"), then the branch name is passed to the command to delete the branch.
I have written a Python script using GitPython to do delete local branches which don't exist on remote.
import git
import subprocess
from git.exc import GitCommandError
import os
def delete_merged_branches():
current_dir = input("Enter repository directory:")
repo = git.Repo(current_dir)
git_command = git.Git(current_dir)
# fetch the remote with prune, this will delete the remote references in local.
for remote in repo.remotes:
remote.fetch(prune=True)
local_branches = [branch.name for branch in repo.branches]
deleted_branches = []
# deleted_branches are the branches which are deleted on remote but exists on local.
for branch in local_branches:
try:
remote_name = 'origin/'+ branch
repo.git.checkout(remote_name)
except GitCommandError:
# if the remote reference is not present, it means the branch is deleted on remote.
deleted_branches.append(branch)
for branch in deleted_branches:
print("Deleting branch:"+branch)
git_command.execute(["git", "branch", "-D",branch])
# clean up the work flow.
repo.git.checkout('master')
repo.git.pull()
if __name__ == '__main__':
delete_merged_branches()
Hope someone finds it useful, please add comments if I missed anything.
I wouldn't normally answer a question that already has 16 answers, but all the other answers are wrong, and the right answer is so simple. The question says, "Is there a simple way to delete all tracking branches whose remote equivalent no longer exists?"
If "simple" means deleting them all in one go, not fragile, not dangerous, and without reliance on tools that not all readers will have, then the right answer is: no.
Some answers are simple, but they don't do what was asked. Others do what was asked, but are not simple: all rely on parsing Git output through text-manipulation commands or scripting languages, which may not be present on every system. On top of that, most of the suggestions use porcelain commands, whose output is not designed to be parsed by script ("porcelain" refers to the commands intended for human operation; scripts should use the lower-level "plumbing" commands).
Further reading:
git branch output in a script.git remote prune, git prune, git fetch --prune If you want to do this safely, for the use case in the question (garbage-collect tracking branches which have been deleted on the server but still exist as local branches) and with high-level Git commands only, you have to
git fetch --prune (or git fetch -p, which is an alias, or git prune remote origin which does the same thing without fetching, and is probably not what you want most of the time). git branch -v (any orphaned tracking branch will be marked "[gone]").git branch -d [branch_name] on each orphaned tracking branch(which is what some of the other answers propose).
If you want to script a solution, then for-each-ref is your starting point, as in Mark Longair's answer here and this answer to another question, but I can't see a way to exploit it without writing a shell script loop, or using xargs or something.
To understand what's happening, you need to appreciate that, in the situation of tracking branches, you have not one branch, but three. (And recall that "branch" means simply a pointer to a commit.)
Given a tracking branch feature/X, the remote repository (server) will have this branch and call it feature/X. Your local repository has a branch remotes/origin/feature/X which means, "This is what the remote told me its feature/X branch was, last time we talked," and finally, the local repository has a branch feature/X which points to your latest commit, and is configured to "track" remotes/origin/feature/X, meaning that you can pull and push to keep them aligned.
At some point, someone has deleted the feature/X on the remote. From that moment, you are left with your local feature/X (which you probably don't want any more, since work on feature X is presumably finished), and your remotes/origin/feature/X which is certainly useless because its only purpose was to remember the state of the server's branch.
And Git will let you automatically clean up the redundant remotes/origin/feature/X -- that's what git fetch --prune does -- but for some reason, it doesn't let you automatically delete your own feature/X... even though your feature/X still contains the orphaned tracking information, so it has the information to identify former tracking branches that have been fully merged. (After all, it can give you the information that lets you do the operation by hand yourself.)
git fetch -p
This will prune any branches that no longer exist on the remote.
I am not sure for how long, but I do use git-up now, which takes care of that.
I do git up and it starts to track new branches and deletes the old ones.
Just to make it clear, it is not out-of-box git command — https://github.com/aanand/git-up
BTW it also stashes dirty tree and makes rebases still with just git up.
Hope it'll be useful for someone
Here's the simple answer that worked for me using a git client:
Delete the repository altogether from your machine then check out again.
No mucking around with risky scripts.
This Below Commands Solved My problem.
// To Delete Branch Locally
git branch -d localBranchName
// To Delete Branch Remotely
git push origin --delete remoteBranchName
Powershell-based solution that I find more legible than many of the implementations here.
# prune deleted remoted branches
git fetch -p
# get all branches and their corresponding remote status
# deleted remotes will be marked [gone]
git branch -v |
#find ones marked [gone], capture branchName
select-string -Pattern '^ (?<branchName>\S+)\s+\w+ \[gone\]' |
foreach-object{
#delete the captured branchname.
git branch -D $_.Matches[0].Groups['branchName']
}
I use this method so I can have more control.
git branch -D $(git branch | grep -v "master" | grep -v "develop")
This is remove any branches not named: master or develop.
This worked for me:
git branch -r | awk '{print $1}' | egrep -v -f /dev/fd/0 <(git branch -vv | grep origin) | awk '{print $1}' | xargs git branch -d
After the command
git fetch -p
removes the remote references, when you run
git branch -vv
it will show 'gone' as the remote status. For example,
$ git branch -vv
master b900de9 [origin/master: behind 4] Fixed bug
release/v3.8 fdd2f4e [origin/release/v3.8: behind 2] Fixed bug
release/v3.9 0d680d0 [origin/release/v3.9: behind 2] Updated comments
bug/1234 57379e4 [origin/bug/1234: gone] Fixed bug
So you can write a simple script to remove local branches that have gone remotes:
git fetch -p && for branch in $(git branch -vv | grep ': gone]' | awk '{print $1}'); do git branch -D $branch; done
Note that the above uses the "porcelain" command git branch to get the upstream status.
Another way to obtain this status is to use the "plumbing" command git for-each-ref with the interpolation variable %(upstream:track), which will be [gone] just like above.
This approach is somewhat safer, because there is no risk of accidentally matching on part of the commit message.
git fetch -p && for branch in $(git for-each-ref --format '%(refname) %(upstream:track)' refs/heads | awk '$2 == "[gone]" {sub("refs/heads/", "", $1); print $1}'); do git branch -D $branch; done
Might be useful to some, simple one line to clear all local branches except master and develop
git branch | grep -v "master" | grep -v "develop" | xargs git branch -D
You could do this:
git branch -vv | grep 'origin/.*: gone]' | awk '{print $1}' | xargs git branch -d
P.S.: as pointed out by Sam H.
execute this first:
git remote prune origin
Drawing heavily from a number of other answers here, I've ended up with the following (git 2.13 and above only, I believe), which should work on any UNIX-like shell:
git for-each-ref --shell --format='ref=%(if:equals=[gone])%(upstream:track)%(then)%(refname)%(end)' refs/heads | while read entry; do eval "$entry"; [ ! -z "$ref" ] && git update-ref -d "$ref" && echo "deleted $ref"; done
This notably uses for-each-ref instead of branch (as branch is a "porcelain" command designed for human-readable output, not machine-processing) and uses its --shell argument to get properly escaped output (this allows us to not worry about any character in the ref name).
If you are using zsh shell with Oh My Zsh installed then the easiest way to do this safely is to use the built in autocomplete.
First determine which branches you want to delete with:
~ git branch --merged
branch1
branch2
branch3
* master
this will show you a list of already merged branches
After you know a few you want to delete then type:
~ git branch -d
All you have to do is hit [tab] and it will show you a list of local branches. Use tab-complete or just hit [tab] again and you can cycle through them to select a branch with [enter].
Tab Select the branches over and over again until you have a list of branches you wnat to delete:
~ git branch -d branch1 branch2 branch3
Now just press enter to delete your collection of branches.
If you aren't using zsh on your terminal... Get it here.
I like using pipes because it makes the command easier to read.
This is my solution if you would like to remove all branches except master.
git branch | grep -v master | xargs -n 1 git branch -D
To delete other branches that match your criteria, modify the first and second block.
git branch --merged | grep feature_name | xargs -n 1 git branch -D
Source: Stackoverflow.com