How to Delete a Git Branch Locally and Remotely

One common practice in many development workflows, especially when using a feature branch or Git flow strategy, is that once work is completed on a feature, it is often recommended to delete the branch.

Deleting a Branch Locally

To delete a branch locally, use the “git branch -d branch_name” command.

The -d option stands for “delete”. It will prevent deletion if the branch contains changes not present in your current branch or other branches. This is a safety measure to prevent accidental data loss.

If you’re certain you want to delete the branch, even if it has changes that haven’t been merged, you can use:

git branch -D branch_name

Here, -D is a force delete option.

Deleting a Branch Remotely

To delete a branch from a remote repository, you use the “git push remote_name –delete branch_name” command.

For example, if you’re working with the default remote named origin (which is common if you cloned the repo), and you want to delete a branch named feature-xyz, you would use:

git push origin --delete feature-xyz

This command tells Git to push the deletion of the branch to the remote repository.

Note: Always exercise caution when deleting branches, especially remotely. Ensure you’re not removing work that others might be using or that hasn’t been merged elsewhere.

Overall, branch management is an essential aspect of using Git effectively, and regularly pruning old branches is a part of that.

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