JIYIK CN >

This article will explain how to delete local and remote branches in Git.

We create branches in Git to separate development work (i.e.) we can create a branch for a feature, separate from the main branch.

Sometimes, we may decide to discard a branch and remove it from the Git repository. The branch we want to delete may exist in the local or remote repository.

We will now illustrate this with an example.

Deleting branches in Git using git branchandgit push

We usually create multiple branches in a Git repository in a typical development environment, in addition to the master branch. We use the master branch for final production-level changes.

We might use one branch for feature development and another for bug fixes. Later, when we want to release, we merge these branches into the release or master branch.

Sometimes, we may decide to delete some branches that are no longer needed. Branches may exist only in the local repository of Git or in the remote repository.

Suppose we have a branch named , a local branch, in the Git repository feature1. To delete a local branch in Git, we use the command with -dthe option git branch.

The command syntax to delete a local branch is git branch -d <branch_name>. So, we use the following code to delete our local branch feature1.

$ git branch -d feature1

We can use the -d branch -Dand -d branch command git branch, which is --delete --forcean alias for the -d branch option. This will cause the branch to be deleted even if it has not been fully merged with its upstream branch.

So we can do this.

$ git branch -D feature1

Sometimes, we may also need to delete a remote branch. We may decide that we are done with a branch and it is no longer needed by the development team.

Therefore, we may no longer keep that branch in the remote repository.

We can delete the remote branch using the command with the -d --deleteoption .git push

The command syntax to delete a remote branch is git push <remote_name> --delete <branch_name>.

For example, branch feature1is a remote branch. We can delete the remote branch as follows.

$ git push origin --delete feature1

Therefore, we have explained in detail how to delete local and remote branches in Git.