Git - Deleting Merged Branches

I use git for source control when writing these posts. Eventually- my local editor ends up with 50 branches which have already been merged into origin/main, and I end up needing to manually go through and remove the old branches.

This, is a VERY short post, detailing how to create a git alias to automatically prune branches, which have been merged, or deleted on your remote.

If- you don't need steps on how to create the alias, then here is the command:

!git fetch -p && git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -D

Otherwise, keep reading.

Solution

A simple git alias.

Step 1. Edit your .gitconfig

On windows, invoke-item ~/.gitconfig

On linux, edit/nano/vi ~/.gitconfig

Step 2. Add the alias.

[alias]
    fprune = !git fetch -p && git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -D

You can change fprune to any alias you would prefer instead.

How to use

Simple. Type git fprune

PS C:\Users\XO\source\repos\Web> git fprune
Deleted branch DIN-Mount-Closet-Part2 (was 83c7e5a).
Deleted branch Garage-Part-1 (was 8cbd240).
Deleted branch fix-broken-links (was 9b5f439).
Deleted branch hoodcat-chronicles (was a5baab7).
Deleted branch mikrotik-outbound-vpn (was 3484c85).

What, does the command do??!?

First, lets break the command down into parts.

Original Command: !git fetch -p && git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -D

Parts: 1. git fetch -p - Fetch from remote. -p prunes branches which no longer exist on remote. 2. git branch -vv - Lists branches in verbose. Verbose includes commit id, and status on remote. 3. awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' - This selects branches where the remote is listed as "Gone" (aka, deleted / merged / etc) - Then, it selects the first column, which is the branch's name. 4. xargs git branch -D - This, more or less does, xargs git branch -D your-branch-name - xargs takes the stdin, and passes as an argument to the command you provide.