How do I delete a Git branch locally and remotely

Question

I want to delete a branch both locally and remotely  Failed Attempts to Delete a Remote Branch   git branch -d remotes origin bugfix error  branch  remotes origin bugfix  not found     git branch -d origin bugfix error  branch  origin bugfix  not found     git branch -rd origin bugfix Deleted remote branch origin bugfix  was 2a14ef7      git push Everything up-to-date    git pull From github com gituser gitproject     new branch  bugfix - gt  origin bugfix Already up-to-date   What should I do differently to successfully delete the remotes origin bugfix branch both locally and remotely

User · Answer

I got sick of googling for this answer  so I took a similar approach to the answer that crizCraig posted earlier   I added the following to my Bash profile   function gitdelete        git push origin --delete  1     git branch -D  1     Then every time I m done with a branch  merged into master  for example  I run the following in my terminal   gitdelete my-branch-name      which then deletes my-branch-name from origin as as well as locally

User · Answer

Delete remote branch  git push origin   lt branchname gt   Delete local branch  git branch -D  lt branchname gt   Delete local branch steps    checkout to another branch delete local branch

User · Answer

A one-liner command to delete both local  and remote   D branch-name  git branch -D  D  git push origin   D   Or add the alias below to your    gitconfig  Usage  git kill branch-name   alias      kill     f    git branch -D    1     git push origin --delete    1      f

User · Answer

Steps for deleting a branch   For deleting the remote branch   git push origin --delete  lt your branch gt    For deleting the local branch  you have three ways   1  git branch -D  lt branch name gt   2  git branch --delete --force  lt branch name gt     Same as -D  3  git branch --delete   lt branch name gt            Error on unmerge   Explain  OK  just explain what s going on here   Simply do git push origin --delete to delete your remote branch only  add the name of the branch at the end and this will delete and push it to remote at the same time     Also  git branch -D  which simply delete the local branch only      -D stands for --delete --force which will delete the branch even it s not merged  force delete   but you can also use -d which stands for --delete which throw an error respective of the branch merge status     I also create the image below to show the steps

User · Answer

If you want to delete a branch  first checkout to the branch other than the branch to be deleted   git checkout other than branch to be deleted   Deleting the local branch   git branch -D branch to be deleted   Deleting the remote branch   git push origin --delete branch to be deleted

User · Answer

Deleting Branches  Let s assume our work on branch  quot contact-form quot  is done and we ve already integrated it into  quot master quot   Since we don t need it anymore  we can delete it  locally     git branch -d contact-form   And for deleting the remote branch  git push origin --delete contact-form

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Executive Summary   git push -d  lt remote name gt   lt branch name gt    git branch -d  lt branch name gt   Note that in most cases the remote name is origin  In such a case you ll have to use the command like so    git push -d origin  lt branch name gt   Delete Local Branch To delete the local branch use one of the following    git branch -d branch name   git branch -D branch name  Note  The -d option is an alias for --delete  which only deletes the branch if it has already been fully merged in its upstream branch  You could also use -D  which is an alias for --delete --force  which deletes the branch  quot irrespective of its merged status  quot   Source  man git-branch  Also note that git branch -d branch name will fail if you are currently in the branch you want to remove  The message starts with error  Cannot delete the branch  branch name   If so  first switch to some other branch  for example  git checkout master  Delete Remote Branch  Updated on 8-Sep-2017  As of Git v1 7 0  you can delete a remote branch using   git push  lt remote name gt  --delete  lt branch name gt   which might be easier to remember than   git push  lt remote name gt    lt branch name gt   which was added in Git v1 5 0  quot to delete a remote branch or a tag  quot  Starting on Git v2 8 0 you can also use git push with the -d option as an alias for --delete  Therefore  the version of Git you have installed will dictate whether you need to use the easier or harder syntax  Delete Remote Branch  Original Answer from 5-Jan-2010  From Chapter 3 of Pro Git by Scott Chacon   Deleting Remote Branches Suppose you   re done with a remote branch     say  you and your collaborators are finished with a feature and have merged it into your remote   s master branch  or whatever branch your stable code-line is in   You can delete a remote branch using the rather obtuse syntax git push  remotename    branch   If you want to delete your server-fix branch from the server  you run the following     git push origin  serverfix To git github com schacon simplegit git  -  deleted          serverfix   Boom  No more branches on your server  You may want to dog-ear this page  because you   ll need that command  and you   ll likely forget the syntax  A way to remember this command is by recalling the git push  remotename   localbranch   remotebranch  syntax that we went over a bit earlier  If you leave off the  localbranch  portion  then you   re basically saying     Take nothing on my side and make it be  remotebranch       I issued git push origin  bugfix and it worked beautifully  Scott Chacon was right   I will want to dog ear that page  or virtually dog ear by answering this on Stack  Overflow   Then you should execute this on other machines   Fetch changes from all remotes and locally delete    remote deleted branches tags etc   --prune will do the job  -  git fetch --all --prune  to propagate changes

User · Answer

To delete locally -  normal   git branch -d my branch   If your branch is in a rebasing merging progress and that was not done properly  it means you will get an error  Rebase Merge in progress  so in that case  you won t be able to delete your branch   So either you need to solve the rebasing merging  Otherwise  you can do force delete by using   git branch -D my branch   To delete in remote   git push --delete origin my branch   You can do the same using   git push origin  my branch     Easy to remember both will do the same    Graphical representation

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Many of the other answers will lead to errors warnings  This approach is relatively fool proof although you may still need git branch -D branch to delete if it s not fully merged into some other branch  for example   git checkout some other branch git push origin  branch to delete git branch -d branch to delete   Remote pruning isn t needed if you deleted the remote branch  It s only used to get the most up-to-date remotes available on a repository you re tracking  I ve observed git fetch will add remotes  not remove them  Here s an example of when git remote prune origin will actually do something   User A does the steps above  User B would run the following commands to see the most up-to-date remote branches   git fetch git remote prune origin git branch -r

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Here is a mashup of all the other answers  It requires Ruby 1 9 3  and is tested only on OS nbsp X   Call this file git-remove  make it executable  and put it in your path  Then use  for example  git remove temp      usr bin env ruby require  io console   if   FILE       0       branch name   ARGV 0  if  ARGV 0         print  Press Y to force delete local and remote branch   branch name          response   STDIN getch     if   Y    y    yes   include  response        puts   nContinuing          git branch -D   branch name          git branch -D -r origin   branch name          git push origin --delete   branch name       else       puts   nQuitting       end end

User · Answer

According to the latest document using a terminal we can delete in the following way   Delete in local   git branch -D usermanagement   Delete in remote location   git push --delete origin usermanagement

User · Answer

The short answers  If you want more detailed explanations of the following commands  then see the long answers in the next section   Deleting a remote branch  git push origin --delete  lt branch gt     Git version 1 7 0 or newer git push origin -d  lt branch gt           Shorter version  Git 1 7 0 or newer  git push origin   lt branch gt             Git versions older than 1 7 0   Deleting a local branch  git branch --delete  lt branch gt  git branch -d  lt branch gt    Shorter version git branch -D  lt branch gt    Force-delete un-merged branches   Deleting a local remote-tracking branch  git branch --delete --remotes  lt remote gt   lt branch gt  git branch -dr  lt remote gt   lt branch gt    Shorter  git fetch  lt remote gt  --prune   Delete multiple obsolete remote-tracking branches git fetch  lt remote gt  -p        Shorter     The long answer  there are three different branches to delete   When you re dealing with deleting branches both locally and remotely  keep in mind that there are three different branches involved    The local branch X  The remote origin branch X  The local remote-tracking branch origin X that tracks the remote branch X      The original poster used   git branch -rd origin bugfix   Which only deleted his local remote-tracking branch origin bugfix  and not the actual remote branch bugfix on origin     To delete that actual remote branch  you need  git push origin --delete bugfix     Additional details  The following sections describe additional details to consider when deleting your remote and remote-tracking branches   Pushing to delete remote branches also removes remote-tracking branches  Note that deleting the remote branch X from the command line using a git push will also remove the local remote-tracking branch origin X  so it is not necessary to prune the obsolete remote-tracking branch with git fetch --prune or git fetch -p  However  it wouldn t hurt if you did it anyway   You can verify that the remote-tracking branch origin X was also deleted by running the following     View just remote-tracking branches git branch --remotes git branch -r    View both strictly local as well as remote-tracking branches git branch --all git branch -a   Pruning the obsolete local remote-tracking branch origin X  If you didn t delete your remote branch X from the command line  like above   then your local repository will still contain  a now obsolete  remote-tracking branch origin X  This can happen if you deleted a remote branch directly through GitHub s web interface  for example   A typical way to remove these obsolete remote-tracking branches  since Git version 1 6 6  is to simply run git fetch with the --prune or shorter -p  Note that this removes all obsolete local remote-tracking branches for any remote branches that no longer exist on the remote   git fetch origin --prune git fetch origin -p   Shorter   Here is the relevant quote from the 1 6 6 release notes  emphasis mine        git fetch  learned --all and --multipleoptions  to run fetch from   many repositories  and --prune option to remove remote tracking   branches that went stale   These make  git remote update  and  git   remote prune  less necessary  there is no plan to remove  remote   update  nor  remote prune   though     Alternative to above automatic pruning for obsolete remote-tracking branches  Alternatively  instead of pruning your obsolete local remote-tracking branches through git fetch -p  you can avoid making the extra network operation by just manually removing the branch es  with the --remote or -r flags   git branch --delete --remotes origin X git branch -dr origin X   Shorter   See Also   git-branch 1  Manual Page  git-fetch 1  Manual Page  Pro Git  sect  3 5 Git Branching - Remote Branches

User · Answer

Use   git push origin  bugfix    Deletes remote branch git branch -d bugfix       Must delete local branch manually   If you are sure you want to delete it  run  git branch -D bugfix   Now to clean up deleted remote branches run  git remote prune origin

User · Answer

Before executing  git branch --delete  lt branch gt    make sure you determine first what the exact name of the remote branch is by executing   git ls-remote   This will tell you what to enter exactly for  lt branch gt  value   branch is case sensitive

User · Answer

I use the following in my Bash settings   alias git-shoot  git push origin --delete    Then you can call   git-shoot branchname

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It s very simple  To delete the remote branch git push -d origin  lt branch-name gt   Or git push origin   lt branch-name gt   To forcefully delete local branch git branch -D  lt branch-name gt   Happy Coding

User · Answer

Delete locally   To delete a local branch  you can use   git branch -d  lt branch name gt    To delete a branch forcibly  use -D instead of -d   git branch -D  lt branch name gt    Delete remotely   There are two options   git push origin  branchname  git push origin --delete branchname   I would suggest you use the second way as it is more intuitive

User · Answer

There are good answers  but  in case that you have a ton of branches  deleting them one by one locally and remotely  would be a tedious tasks  You can use this script to automate these tasks   branch not delete    master   develop   our-branch-1   our-branch-2    for branch in  git branch -a   grep remotes   grep -v HEAD   grep -v master   do        Delete prefix remotes origin  from branch name     branch name    awk   gsub  remotes origin        print    lt  lt  lt   branch        if          branch not delete              branch name        then           Delete branch remotly and locally         git push origin   branch name     fi done    List the branches that you don t want to delete Iterate over the remote s branches and if they aren t in our  preserve list   deleted them    Source  Removing Git branches at once

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Now you can do it with the GitHub Desktop application   After launching the application   Click on the project containing the branch Switch to the branch you would like to delete   From the  Branch  menu  select   Unpublish      to have the branch deleted from the GitHub servers    From the  Branch  menu  select   Delete  branch name       to have the branch deleted off of your local machine  AKA the machine you are currently working on

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Both CoolAJ86 s and apenwarr s answers are very similar  I went back and forth between the two trying to understand the better approach to support a submodule replacement  Below is a combination of them   First navigate Git Bash to the root of the Git repository to be split  In my example here that is   Documents OriginalRepo  master     Move the folder at prefix to a new branch git subtree split --prefix SubFolderName FolderToBeNewRepo --branch to-be-new-repo    Create a new repository out of the newly made branch mkdir   Documents NewRepo pushd   Documents NewRepo git init git pull   Documents OriginalRepo to-be-new-repo    Upload the new repository to a place that should be referenced for submodules git remote add origin git github com myUsername newRepo git git push -u origin master popd    Replace the folder with a submodule git rm -rf   SubFolderName FolderToBeNewRepo git submodule add git github com myUsername newRepo git SubFolderName FolderToBeNewRepo git branch --delete --force to-be-new-repo   Below is a copy of above with the customize-able names replaced and using HTTPS instead  The root folder is now   Documents  Shawn UnityProjects SoProject  master     Move the folder at prefix to a new branch git subtree split --prefix Assets SoArchitecture --branch so-package    Create a new repository out of the newly made branch mkdir   Documents  Shawn UnityProjects SoArchitecture pushd   Documents  Shawn UnityProjects SoArchitecture git init git pull   Documents  Shawn UnityProjects SoProject so-package    Upload the new repository to a place that should be referenced for submodules git remote add origin https   github com Feddas SoArchitecture git git push -u origin master popd    Replace the folder with a submodule git rm -rf   Assets SoArchitecture git submodule add https   github com Feddas SoArchitecture git git branch --delete --force so-package

User · Answer

Another approach is   git push --prune origin   WARNING  This will delete all remote branches that do not exist locally  Or more comprehensively   git push --mirror   will effectively make the remote repository look like the local copy of the repository  local heads  remotes and tags are mirrored on remote

User · Answer

This won t work if you have a tag with the same name as the branch on the remote     git push origin  branch-or-tag-name error  dst refspec branch-or-tag-name matches more than one  error  failed to push some refs to  git github com SomeName some-repo git    In that case you need to specify that you want to delete the branch  not the tag   git push origin  refs heads branch-or-tag-name   Similarly  to delete the tag instead of the branch you would use   git push origin  refs tags branch-or-tag-name

User · Answer

Matthew s answer is great for removing remote branches and I also appreciate the explanation  but to make a simple distinction between the two commands   To remove a local branch from your machine   git branch -d  the local branch   use -D instead to force deleting the branch without checking merged status   To remove a remote branch from the server   git push origin --delete  the remote branch   Reference  Git  Delete a branch  local or remote

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You can also do this using git remote prune origin    git remote prune origin Pruning origin URL  git example com yourrepo git     pruned  origin some-branchs   It prunes and deletes remote-tracking branches from a git branch -r listing

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Tip  When you delete branches using  git branch -d  lt branchname gt    Deletes local branch   or  git push origin   lt branchname gt    Deletes remote branch   only the references are deleted  Even though the branch is actually removed on the remote  the references to it still exists in the local repositories of your team members  This means that for other team members the deleted branches are still visible when they do a git branch -a   To solve this  your team members can prune the deleted branches with  git remote prune  lt repository gt    This is typically git remote prune origin

User · Answer

You can also use the following to delete the remote branch  git push --delete origin serverfix   Which does the same thing as  git push origin  serverfix   but it may be easier to remember

User · Answer

This is simple  Just run the following command   To delete a Git branch both locally and remotely  first delete the local branch using this command   git branch -d example    Here example is the branch name    And after that  delete the remote branch using this command   git push origin  example

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An alternative option to the command line for deleting remote branches is the GitHub branches page   See for example  https   github com angular angular js branches  Found in the Code -  Branches page of a GitHub repository   I generally prefer command line myself but this GitHub page shows you lots more information about the branches  such as last updated date and user  and number of commits ahead and behind  It is useful when dealing with a large number of branches

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Since January 2013  GitHub included a Delete branch button next to each branch in your  Branches  page   Relevant blog post  Create and delete branches

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To delete your branch locally and remotely    Checkout to master branch -  git checkout master Delete your remote branch - git push origin --delete  lt branch-name gt  Delete your local branch - git branch --delete  lt branch-name gt

User · Answer

If you want to complete both these steps with a single command  you can make an alias for it by adding the below to your    gitconfig    alias      rmbranch     f    git branch -d   1   amp  amp  git push origin --delete   1     f    Alternatively  you can add this to your global configuration from the command line using  git config --global alias rmbranch     f    git branch -d   1   amp  amp  git push origin --delete   1     f    NOTE  If using -d  lowercase d   the branch will only be deleted if it has been merged  To force the delete to happen  you will need to use -D  uppercase D

User · Answer

I added the following aliases to my  gitconfig file   This allows me to delete branches with or without specifying the branch name   Branch name is defaulted to the current branch if no argument is passed in    alias      branch-name   rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD           rm-remote-branch     f     branch   1-  git branch-name    git push origin   branch     f      rm-local-branch     f     branch   1-  git branch-name    git checkout master  git branch -d  branch     f      rm-branch-fully     f     branch   1-  git branch-name    git rm-local-branch  branch  git rm-remote-branch  branch     f

User · Answer

Simply say   git branch -d  lt branch-name gt  git push origin   lt branch-name gt

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The most flexible way is to use a custom Git command  For example  create the following Python script somewhere in your  PATH under the name git-rmbranch and make it executable      usr bin env python3  import argparse import subprocess import sys  def rmbranch branch name  remote  force       try          print subprocess run   git    branch    -D  if force else  -d   branch name                                capture output True  check True  encoding  utf-8   stdout  end         except subprocess CalledProcessError as exc          print exc stderr replace f git branch -D  branch name    f git rmbranch -f  branch name     end             return exc returncode      return subprocess run   git    push   remote   --delete   branch name   returncode      if   name         main         parser   argparse ArgumentParser description  Delete a Git branch locally and remotely        parser add argument  -r    --remote   default  origin   help  The remote name  defaults to  origin         parser add argument  -f    --force   action  store true   help  Force deletion of not fully merged branches       parser add argument  branch name   help  The branch name       args   parser parse args        sys exit rmbranch args branch name  args remote  args force     Then git rmbranch -h will show you usage information   usage  git-rmbranch  -h   -r REMOTE   -f  branch name  Delete a Git branch locally and remotely   positional arguments    branch name           The branch name  optional arguments    -h  --help            show this help message and exit   -r REMOTE  --remote REMOTE                         The remote name  defaults to  origin     -f  --force           Force deletion of not fully merged branches   Note that git push origin --delete  lt branch name gt  also removes the local remote-tracking branch  origin  lt branch name gt  by default   so no need to care about that   P S  You can find the latest version of this Git command here  Comments and suggestions are welcome

User · Answer

git push origin --delete  lt branch Name gt    is easier to remember than  git push origin  branchName

User · Answer

Using Git Bash you can execute the following   git branch --delete  lt branch gt    Or  -  From the GitHub desktop application  when you have the branch checked out  you can delete the local branch via the Branch menu strip     If you are not using the GitHub desktop application and are using an IDE like Visual Studio for your local source control  all you have to do is a couple of quick steps    Check out a branch other than the one you wish to delete  Right-click the branch you wish to delete  Select the Delete option from the context menu    Then  once logged in to your GitHub account online  go to the repository and click the All Branches tab   From there  just click the little trash can icon on the right on the name of the branch you wish to delete      Keep in mind - if the branch isn t published  there isn t any need to try to delete it from your online repository

User · Answer

git branch -D  lt name-of-branch gt  git branch -D -r origin  lt name-of-branch gt  git push origin   lt name-of-branch gt

User · Answer

In addition to the other answers  I often use the git remote branch tool  It s an extra install  but it gets you a convenient way to interact with remote branches  In this case  to delete   grb delete branch   I find that I also use the publish and track commands quite often

User · Answer

I created the following convenient function in my  bash aliases file   git-delete-branch           if    -n  1     then         git checkout master  gt   dev null          branch name   1           echo  Deleting local  branch name branch              git branch -D   branch name           echo  Deleting remote  branch name branch              git push origin --delete   branch name           git remote prune origin          echo  Your current branches are            git branch -a      else         echo  Usage  git-delete-branch  lt branch name gt        fi

[git] How do I delete a Git branch locally and remotely?

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