Git Branches¶

Working with Branches¶

Working with Git branches always used to be done with checkout.
The modern way to work with branches is with branch/switch.

Creating Git Branches¶

Create a branch using:

git branch branch-name
# or
git switch -c branch-name

The first one will just create the branch with the given branch-name.
The second will both create and switch to the new branch.

Switch Branch¶

Use git switch to switch to a given branch.

git switch branch-name

List Branches¶

Get a list of all the current branches with branch -l.

git branch -l

This shows all the branches that exist locally.

Update Branch References¶

Prune deleted remote branches¶

When a branch is deleted remotely, you'll need to update your local references.

git fetch --prune origin

This should update the current refs.

Or, to be more explicit:

git remote prune origin

This assumes the branch was deleted in the origin remote.

Prune deleted local branches¶

If you've ever switched to the branch before, it might still exist in the Git reflog.

git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --prune=now

git reflog --expire=now --all: Prunes entries older than the specified time.
- --expire=now prunes all reflog entries older than today.
- git gc --prune=now: This cleans up unnecessary files.
- --prune prunes "loose" objects (objects older than the time given).
- This is on by default, but the time is set to 2 weeks.

Check if the branch still exists.

git show-ref | grep -i branch-name

If the branch still isn't gone, delete it manually from .git/refs/heads/

rm -rf .git/refs/heads/branch-name

Pruning Remote Branches¶

Once you've deleted branches locally, they may still exist on your remote.

Prune a Single Remote Branch¶

If you need to delete a single remote branch that you've deleted locally, you can use git push with the --delete option:

# Delete a single remote branch on Github explicitly
git push origin --delete branch-name
# or, use the refspec delete syntax
git push origin :branch-name

This only removes the branch branch-name on GitHub.

The :branch-name syntax is the refspec delete form.
- It means "push 'nothing' to branch-name," which instructs the remote to delete that ref.

Bulk Prune Branches¶

If you want to prune all remote branches that were deleted locally, you can do a dry run first:

git push --prune --dry-run origin 'refs/heads/*:refs/heads/*'

'refs/heads/*:refs/heads*: Specifies source side and destination side.
- refs/heads/*: Source side. All local branches.
- refs/heads/*: Destination side. All remove branches under refs/heads (normal branches).
Using --prune with refspecs deletes remote branches under the destination side of your refspec that have no matching source on your local side.
This does not touch tags unless they're included in the refspec.

If that looks good, you can do a real run:

git push --prune origin 'refs/heads/*:refs/heads/*'

This:

Pushes all local branches to origin
Deletes any remote branch under refs/heads/* that has no corresponding local branch
Safer than --mirror because it only targets branches (not tags, notes, etc.)

Bulk Prune All Refs (Mirror)¶

You can also mirror everything.
This method mirrors all refs (branches, tags, notes), additions, updates, and deletions.

This is a destructive operation.

Do a dry run first:

git push --mirror --dry-run origin
# then
git push --mirror origin

Only use this method if you truly want the remote to be an exact mirror of the local repository.