Delete local Git branches after deleting them on the remote repo

Question

I want to have my local and remote repositories always in sync in terms of branches.

After a Pull Request review on GitHub, I merge and remove my branch there (remot

Answer 1

I use the same flow with GitHub, and didn't find the previous answers satisfying me, as git branch --merged lists branches which were merged, but not every of them was removed remotely in my case. So, this worked for me:

git fetch --all -p; git branch -vv | grep ": gone]" | awk '{ print $1 }' | xargs -n 1 git branch -d

where:

• git fetch --all -p: update local branches status
• git branch -vv: list local branches status
• grep ": gone]": filter deleted ones
• awk '{ print $1 }': extract their names
• xargs -n 1 git branch -d: pass the name to the delete command

Note: if you prefer, you could use -D instead of -d, which enforces the delete.

For example:

someUsr@someHost:~/repo$ git branch -a
basic-testing
integration-for-tests
* master
origin
playground-for-tests
test-services
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/basic-testing
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/test-services

someUsr@someHost:~/repo$ git fetch --all -p; git branch -vv | grep ": gone]" | awk '{ print $1 }' | xargs -n 1 git branch -d
Fetching origin
Deleted branch integration-for-tests (was fbc609a).
Deleted branch playground-for-tests (was 584b900).

someUsr@someHost:~/repo$ git branch -a
basic-testing
* master
origin
test-services
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/basic-testing
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/test-services

Reference:

http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Remote-Branches