How can I get a list of Git branches ordered by most recent commit

Question

I want to get a list of all the branches in a Git repository with the  freshest  branches at the top  where the  freshest  branch is the one that s been committed to most recently  and is  therefore  more likely to be one I want to pay attention to    Is there a way I can use Git to either  a  sort the list of branches by latest commit  or  b  get a list of branches together with each one s last-commit date  in some kind of machine-readable format   Worst case  I could always run git branch to get a list of all the branches  parse its output  and then git log -n 1 branchname --format format  ci for each one  to get each branch s commit date  But this will run on a Windows box  where spinning up a new process is relatively expensive  so launching the Git executable once per branch could get slow if there are a lot of branches  Is there a way to do all this with a single command

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Here s a little script that I use to switch between recent branches      bin bash   sudo bash  re    0-9      if      1      re     then     lines   1  else     lines 10 fi branches    git recent   tail -n  lines   nl   branches nf    git recent-nf   tail -n  lines   nl   echo   branches     Prompt which server to connect to max    echo   branches    wc -l   index  while          index       0-9     amp  amp    index  -gt 0  amp  amp    index  -le   max        do     echo -n  Checkout to        read index done  branch     echo   branches nf    sed -n    index p    awk    print  NF       git co  branch clear   Using those two aliases   recent   for-each-ref --sort committerdate refs heads  --format     color blue    authorname    color yellow   refname short   color reset   recent-nf   for-each-ref --sort committerdate refs heads  --format     authorname    refname short     Just call that in a Git repository  and it will show you the last N branches  10 by default  and a number aside each  Input the number of the branch  and it checks out

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I also needed colors  tags and remote references without any duplicates   for ref in   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate --format    refname   refs heads  refs remotes    do git log -n1  ref --pretty format   Cgreen cr Creset  C yellow  d Creset  C bold blue  lt  an gt  Creset n    cat   done   awk    a  0       Because quoting can be hard  here is the alias for Bash   alias glist  for ref in   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate --format    refname   refs heads  refs remotes    do git log -n1  ref --pretty format   Cgreen cr Creset  C yellow  d Creset  C bold blue  lt  an gt  Creset n    cat   done   awk      a    0

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git 2 7  Q4 2015  will introduce branch sorting using directly git branch  See commit aa3bc55  commit aedcb7d  commit 1511b22  commit f65f139       23 Sep 2015   commit aedcb7d  commit 1511b22  commit ca41799  24 Sep 2015   and commit f65f139       23 Sep 2015  by Karthik Nayak  KarthikNayak    Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 7f11b48  15 Oct 2015  In particular  commit aedcb7d   branch c  use  ref-filter  APIs  Make  branch c  use  ref-filter  APIs for iterating through refs sorting  This removes most of the code used in  branch c  replacing it with calls to the  ref-filter  library  It adds the option --sort  lt key gt    Sort based on the key given  Prefix - to sort in descending order of the value    You may use the --sort  lt key gt  option multiple times  in which case the last key becomes the primary key    The keys supported are the same as those in git for-each-ref  Sort order defaults to sorting based on the full refname  including refs     prefix   This lists detached HEAD  if present  first  then local branches and finally remote-tracking branches   Here  git branch --sort -committerdate   Or  see below with Git 2 19    if you are sure to  always  want to see branches ordered by commits  git config --global branch sort -committerdate git branch   See also commit 9e46833  30 Oct 2015  by Karthik Nayak  KarthikNayak   Helped-by  Junio C Hamano  gitster    Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 415095f  03 Nov 2015   When sorting as per numerical values  e g  --sort objectsize  there is no fallback comparison when both refs hold the same value  This can cause unexpected results  i e  the order of listing refs with equal values cannot be pre-determined  as pointed out by Johannes Sixt   gmane 280117     Hence  fallback to alphabetical comparison based on the refname whenever the other criterion is equal     git branch --sort objectsize      HEAD detached from fromtag        branch-two       branch-one       master   With Git 2 19  the sort order can be set by default  git branch supports a config branch sort  like git tag  which already had a config tag sort  See commit 560ae1c  16 Aug 2018  by Samuel Maftoul        Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit d89db6f  27 Aug 2018   branch sort     This variable controls the sort ordering of branches when displayed by git-branch  Without the  quot --sort  lt value gt  quot  option provided  the value of this variable will be used as the default    To list remote branches  use git branch -r --sort objectsize   The -r flag causes it to list remote branches instead of local branches   With Git 2 27  Q2 2020    quot git branch quot  and other  quot for-each-ref quot  variants accepted multiple --sort  lt key gt  options in the increasing order of precedence  but it had a few breakages around  quot --ignore-case quot  handling  and tie-breaking with the refname  which have been fixed  See commit 7c5045f  commit 76f9e56  03 May 2020  by Jeff King  peff    Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 6de1630  08 May 2020   ref-filter  apply fallback refname sort only after all user sorts Signed-off-by  Jeff King   Commit 9e468334b4   quot ref-filter  fallback on alphabetical comparison quot   2015-10-30  Git v2 7 0-rc0 -- merge listed in batch  10  taught ref-filter s sort to fallback to comparing refnames  But it did it at the wrong level  overriding the comparison result for a single  quot --sort quot  key from the user  rather than after all sort keys have been exhausted    This worked correctly for a single  quot --sort quot  option  but not for multiple ones  We d break any ties in the first key with the refname and never evaluate the second key at all    To make matters even more interesting  we only applied this fallback sometimes  For a field like  quot taggeremail quot  which requires a string comparison  we d truly return the result of strcmp    even if it was 0  But for numerical  quot value quot  fields like  quot taggerdate quot   we did apply the fallback  And that s why our multiple-sort test missed this  it uses taggeremail as the main comparison    So let s start by adding a much more rigorous test  We ll have a set of commits expressing every combination of two tagger emails  dates  and refnames  Then we can confirm that our sort is applied with the correct precedence  and we ll be hitting both the string and value comparators    That does show the bug  and the fix is simple  moving the fallback to the outer compare refs   function  after all ref sorting keys have been exhausted    Note that in the outer function we don t have an  quot ignore case quot  flag  as it s part of each individual ref sorting element  It s debatable what such a fallback should do  since we didn t use the user s keys to match  But until now we have been trying to respect that flag  so the least-invasive thing is to try to continue to do so  Since all callers in the current code either set the flag for all keys or for none  we can just pull the flag from the first key  In a hypothetical world where the user really can flip the case-insensitivity of keys separately  we may want to extend the code to distinguish that case from a blanket  quot --ignore-case quot     The implementation of  quot git branch --sort quot  man  wrt the detached HEAD display has always been hacky  which has been cleaned up with Git 2 31  Q1 2021   See commit 4045f65  commit 2708ce6  commit 7c269a7  commit d094748  commit 75c50e5  07 Jan 2021   and commit 08bf6a8  commit ffdd02a  06 Jan 2021  by   var Arnfj  r   Bjarmason  avar    Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 9e409d7  25 Jan 2021   branch  show  quot HEAD detached quot  first under reverse sort Signed-off-by    var Arnfj  r   Bjarmason   Change the output of the likes of  quot git branch -l --sort -objectsize quot  man  to show the  quot  HEAD detached at  lt hash gt   quot  message at the start of the output  Before the compare detached head   function added in a preceding commit we d emit this output as an emergent effect  It doesn t make any sense to consider the objectsize  type or other non-attribute of the  quot  HEAD detached at  lt hash gt   quot  message for the purposes of sorting  Let s always emit it at the top instead  The only reason it was sorted in the first place is because we re injecting it into the ref-filter machinery so builtin branch c doesn t need to do its own  quot am I detached  quot  detection

User · Answer

I use the following alias  recent    quot  r   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads --format    HEAD   color yellow   refname short    color bold green   committerdate relative    color blue   subject    color magenta   authorname   color reset   --color always   column -ts      r quot  which produces   Use     to separate

User · Answer

Use the --sort -committerdate option of git for-each-ref   Also available since Git 2 7 0 for git branch   Basic Usage   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads     Or using git branch  since version 2 7 0  git branch --sort -committerdate    DESC git branch --sort committerdate    ASC   Result     Advanced Usage   git for-each-ref --sort committerdate refs heads  --format    HEAD    color yellow   refname short   color reset  -   color red   objectname short   color reset  -   contents subject  -   authorname     color green   committerdate relative   color reset      Result

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My best result as a script   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads  --format    refname short    committerdate iso    authorname         sed  s refs  heads    g        grep -v BACKUP         while IFS     read branch date author     do          printf   -15s  -30s  s n    branch    date    author      done

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I pipe the output from the accepted answer into dialog  to give me an interactive list      bin bash  TMP FILE  tmp selected-git-branch  eval  resize  dialog --title  Recent Git Branches  --menu  Choose a branch   LINES  COLUMNS      LINES - 8      git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads  --format    refname short    committerdate short    2 gt   TMP FILE  if      -eq 0   then     git checkout    lt   TMP FILE  fi  rm -f  TMP FILE  clear   Save as  e g     bin git recent branches sh and chmod  x it  Then git config --global alias rb   git recent branches sh  to give me a new git rb command

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Git v2 19 introduces branch sort config option  see branch sort    So git branch will sort by committer date  desc  by default with    gitconfig  branch      sort   -committerdate       desc   script     git config --global branch sort -committerdate   Update   So     git branch   dev   master       and    git branch -v   dev    0afecf5 Merge branch  oc  into dev   master 652428a Merge branch  dev           7159cf9 Merge branch  bashrc  into dev

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I had the same problem  so I wrote a Ruby gem called Twig  It lists branches in chronological order  newest first   and can also let you set a max age so that you don t list all branches  if you have a lot of them   For example     twig                                issue  status       todo            branch                               -----  ------       ----            ------ 2013-01-26 18 00 21  7m ago   486    In progress  Rebase          optimize-all-the-things 2013-01-26 16 49 21  2h ago   268    In progress  -               whitespace-all-the-things 2013-01-23 18 35 21  3d ago   159    Shipped      Test in prod    refactor-all-the-things 2013-01-22 17 12 09  4d ago   -      -            -               development 2013-01-20 19 45 42  6d ago   -      -            -               master   It also lets you store custom properties for each branch  e g   ticket id  status  todos  and filter the list of branches according to these properties  More info  http   rondevera github io twig

User · Answer

Here is a simple command that lists all branches with latest commits   git branch -v   To order by most recent commit  use  git branch -v --sort committerdate   Source  http   git-scm com book en Git-Branching-Branch-Management

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I was able to reference the previous examples to create something that works best for me      git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads    --format    authordate short    color red   objectname short    color yellow   refname short   color reset       color green   committerdate relative   color reset

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Adds some color  since pretty-format isn t available    alias      branchdate   for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads  --format    authordate short  09  objectname short  09 1B 0 33m  refname short  1B m 09

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I know there are a lot of answers already  but here are my two cents for a simple alias  I like to have my most recent branch at the bottom     alias          br    git branch --sort committerdate --color always   tail -n15  color  branch           current   yellow         local   cyan         remote   red   This will give you a nice overview of your latest 15 branches  in color  with your current branch highlighted  and it has an asterisk

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Had some trouble handling single quotes on Mac in bash profile when trying to set an alias  This answer helped resolve it   How to escape single quotes within single quoted strings  Working solution   alias gb  git for-each-ref --sort committerdate refs heads  --format        HEAD    color yellow   refname short   color reset  -   color red   objectname short   color reset  -   contents subject  -   authorname     color green   committerdate relative   color reset           P S  Could not comment because of my reputation

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The other answers don t seem to allow passing -vv to get verbose output   So here s a one-liner that sorts git branch -vv by commit date  preserving color etc   git branch -vv --color always   while read  do echo -e   git log -1 --format  ct   echo    REPLY    awk   print  2     perl -pe  s  e         -    g   2 gt   dev null    git log -1 --format  ct   t REPLY   done   sort -r   cut -f 2   If you additionally want to print the commit date  you can use this version instead   git branch -vv --color always   while read  do echo -e   git log -1 --format  ci   echo    REPLY    awk   print  2     perl -pe  s  e         -    g   2 gt   dev null    git log -1 --format  ci    REPLY   done   sort -r   cut -d     -f -1 4-   Sample output   2013-09-15   master                  da39a3e  origin master  behind 7  Some patch 2013-09-11    detached from 3eba4b8  3eba4b8 Some other patch 2013-09-09   my-feature              e5e6b4b  master  ahead 2  behind 25  WIP   It s probably more readable split into multiple lines   git branch -vv --color always   while read  do       The underscore is because the active branch is preceded by a      and       for awk I need the columns to line up  The perl call is to strip out       ansi colors  if you don t pass --color always above you can skip this     local branch   echo    REPLY    awk   print  2     perl -pe  s  e         -    g         git log fails when you pass a detached head as a branch name        Hide the error and get the date of the current head      local branch modified   git log -1 --format  ci   branch  2 gt   dev null    git log -1 --format  ci      echo -e   branch modified  REPLY    cut strips the time and timezone columns  leaving only the date done   sort -r   cut -d     -f -1 4-   This should also work with other arguments to git branch  e g  -vvr to list remote-tracking branches  or -vva to list both remote-tracking and local branches

User · Answer

The accepted command-line answer rocks  but if you want something prettier  like a GUI  and your origin      github     You can click   Branches  in the repository  Or hit the URL  directly  https   github com ORGANIZATION NAME REPO NAME branches

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Here s the optimal code  which combines the other two answers   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs heads  --format    committerdate short    authorname    refname short

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I like using a relative date and shortening the branch name like this   git for-each-ref --sort  -authordate iso8601  --format     authordate relative  09  refname short   refs heads   Which gives you output   21 minutes ago  nathan a recent branch 6 hours ago     master 27 hours ago    nathan some other branch 29 hours ago    branch c 6 days ago      branch d   I recommend making a Bash file for adding all your favorite aliases and then sharing the script out to your team  Here s an example to add just this one          bin sh  git config --global alias branches   echo   ------------------------------------------------------------   amp  amp  git for-each-ref --sort  -authordate iso8601  --format     authordate relative  09  refname short   refs heads  amp  amp  echo   ------------------------------------------------------------     Then you can just do this to get a nicely formatted and sorted local branch list   git branches   Update  Do this if you want coloring      bin sh    echo   ------------------------------------------------------------     amp  amp  git for-each-ref --sort  -authordate iso8601  --format     authordate relative  09  refname short   refs heads  amp  amp  echo   ------------------------------------------------------------       grep --color -E    git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD

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List of Git branch names  ordered by most recent commit     Expanding on Jakub   s answer and Joe   s tip  the following will strip out the  refs heads   so the output only displays the branch names     Command   git for-each-ref --count 30 --sort -committerdate refs heads  --format    refname short       Result

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I came up with the following command  for Git 2 13 and later    git branch -r --sort creatordate       --format    creatordate relative    committername    refname lstrip -1           grep -v   HEAD           column -s     -t   If you don   t have column you can replace the last line with        sed -e  s    t g    The output looks like  6 years ago             Tom Preston-Werner  book 4 years  4 months ago   Parker Moore        0 12 1-release 4 years ago             Matt Rogers         1 0-branch 3 years  11 months ago  Matt Rogers         1 2 branch 3 years  1 month ago    Parker Moore        v1-stable 12 months ago           Ben Balter          pages-as-documents 10 months ago           Jordon Bedwell      make-jekyll-parallel 6 months ago            Pat Hawks           to integer 5 months ago            Parker Moore        3 4-stable-backport-5920 4 months ago            Parker Moore        yajl-ruby-2-4-patch 4 weeks ago             Parker Moore        3 4-stable 3 weeks ago             Parker Moore        rouge-1-and-2 19 hours ago            jekyllbot           master   I wrote a blog post about how the various pieces work

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Here is another script that does what all the other scripts do  In fact  it provides a function for your shell   Its contribution is that it pulls some colours from your Git configuration  or uses defaults      Git Branch by Date   Usage  gbd   -r   gbd         local reset color  tput sgr0      local subject color  tput setaf 4   tput bold      local author color  tput setaf 6       local target refs heads     local branch color  git config --get-color color branch local white       if     1    -r       then         target refs remotes origin         branch color  git config --get-color color branch remote red      fi      git for-each-ref --sort committerdate  target --format    branch color   refname short   reset color    subject color   subject   reset color    author color -   authorname     committerdate relative    reset color

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This is based on saeedgnu s version  but with the current branch shown with a star and in color  and only showing anything that is not described as  months  or  years  ago   current branch    git symbolic-ref --short -q HEAD   git for-each-ref --sort committerdate refs heads     --format    refname short    committerdate relative         grep -v    year  month  s   ago        while IFS     read branch date     do       start            end          if     branch    current branch     then         start     e 32m          end   e 0m        fi       printf   start -30s  s end  n    branch    date      done

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git branch --sort -committerdate   head -5  For any one interested in getting just the top 5 branch names sorted based on committer date

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FYI  if you d like to get a list of recently checked out branches  as opposed to recently committed  you can use Git s reflog     git reflog   egrep -io  moving from      space         awk    print  3      head -n5 master stable master some-cool-feature feature improve-everything   See also  How can I get a list of Git branches that I  39 ve recently checked out

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Here s the variation I was looking for   git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate --format    committerdate  09  refname short   refs heads    tail -r   That tail -r reverses the list so the most-recent commiterdate is last

User · Answer

git for-each-ref --sort committerdate refs heads  --format    HEAD    color yellow   refname short   color reset  -   color red   objectname short   color reset  -   contents subject  -   authorname     color green   committerdate relative   color reset    this is that you need

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Simplest one to print along with last commit date  git branch --all  --format    committerdate short    refname short   sort

User · Answer

As of Git 2 19 you can simply   git branch --sort -committerdate   You can also   git config branch sort -committerdate   So whenever you list branches in the current repository  it will be listed sorted by committerdate   If whenever you list branches  you want them sorted by comitterdate   git config --global branch sort -committerdate   Disclaimer  I m the author of this feature in Git  and I implemented it when I saw this question

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Another variation  git branch -r --sort -committerdate --format    HEAD   color yellow   refname short    color bold green   committerdate relative    color blue   subject    color magenta   authorname   color reset   --color always   column -ts     Worth noting that even though it s looking at changes in remote branches  it s worth syncing with origin before running the command  can use git fetch   as I found it can return out of date information if your local Git folder hasn t been updated in a while  Also  this is a version that works in Windows cmd and PowerShell  didn t get output displayed in columns  would be interested to see if anyone gets this working   git branch -r --sort -committerdate --format  quot   HEAD   color yellow   refname short    color bold green   committerdate relative    color blue   subject    color magenta   authorname   color reset  quot  --color always

User · Answer

Normally  we consider the remote branches recently   So try this  git fetch git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate refs remotes origin

[git] How can I get a list of Git branches, ordered by most recent commit?

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