Git - Delete branch

This tutorial explains how to delete a local and remote branch in Github.

First, Run the command git branch -a or git branch --all to know the list of local and remote branches.

The below repository is on featuredev

B:\ch12>git branch -a
* featuredev
  main
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
  remotes/origin/featuredev
  remotes/origin/main

From the above command, It has the following list of branches Local Branches: featuredev,main Remote Branches: remotes/origin/featuredev , remotes/origin/main

How to delete a local branch in git

To delete a local branch in Git, Please follow the below steps

First, Checkout the local branch that you want to delete

B:\ch12>git checkout featuredev
Already on 'featuredev'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/featuredev'.

Now, you can delete the local branch in multiple ways.

First way using --delete --force option

git branch --delete --force localbranch

The second way using the -D option, -D is an alias for --delete --force.

git branch -D localbranch

Third way using --delete

git branch --delete  localbranch

how to delete a remote branch in Git

First, List out all remote branches using the git branch -r or git branch --remotes command

B:\ch12>git branch -r
  origin/HEAD -> origin/main
  origin/featuredev
  origin/main

with recent git versions, you can delete using the –delete option with git push. It deletes the remote branch and pushes the changes.

git push origin --delete branchname

or 
git push origin -d branchname

-d is an alias for the --delete option. with old versions of git

git push origin:branch

B:\ch12>git push origin --delete featuredev
To git.com:user/ch12.git
 - [deleted]         featuredev

It removes the remote repository and references from a local repository.

If any other developers are using this remote repository, The references are still pointing to the remote repository, and deleted branch is shown to them.

To delete from other developer systems, use the below command..

git remote prune featuredev