git-prune

Clean up local git branches that no longer exist on remote - interactively and safely.

Why not just use git fetch --prune?

git fetch --prune only removes remote-tracking references (the refs in .git/refs/remotes/), but does NOT delete your local branches.

After merging PRs and deleting branches on GitHub/GitLab, you'll still have those local branches cluttering your git branch output. git-prune automates cleaning up those actual local branches.

# After someone merges and deletes your PR branch on GitHub:
git fetch --prune
# ✅ Removes refs/remotes/origin/feature/old-work
# ❌ Local branch feature/old-work still exists

git-prune
# ✅ Deletes the local feature/old-work branch

Recommended setup:

# Automatic remote ref cleanup
git config --global fetch.prune true

# Manual local branch cleanup (run occasionally)
git-prune

Features

• Remove local branches deleted from remote
• Interactive confirmation prompts
• Colored terminal output
• Dry-run mode to preview changes
• Protected branches (never deleted)
• Tab completion for bash/zsh/fish/powershell
• Cross-platform support (macOS, Linux, Windows)
• Additional safety features:
  • --merged-only - Only delete branches merged to main
  • --remote - Specify which remote to check
  • --verbose - Show detailed git command output

Installation

Via go install (Recommended)

go install github.com/felixtorres/git-prune@latest

Requirements: Go 1.16 or later must be installed.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/felixtorres/git-prune.git
cd git-prune
go build -o git-prune
sudo mv git-prune /usr/local/bin/

Pre-built Binaries

Download the latest release from the releases page.

Usage

Basic Usage

# Preview what would be deleted (recommended first step)
git-prune --dry-run

# Delete stale branches with confirmation
git-prune

# Delete without confirmation
git-prune --force

Advanced Options

# Protect additional branches
git-prune --keep feature-important --keep hotfix-123

# Only delete branches merged to main
git-prune --merged-only

# Check against a specific remote
git-prune --remote upstream

# Show verbose git output
git-prune --verbose

# Combine options
git-prune --dry-run --merged-only --remote origin

All Options

Flag	Description	Default
--dry-run	Show what would be deleted without deleting	false
--force	Skip confirmation prompt	false
--keep <branch>	Protect additional branch (repeatable)	[]
--remote <name>	Specify remote to check against	origin
--merged-only	Only delete merged branches	false
--target <branch>	Target branch for merge check	main/master
--verbose, -v	Show verbose git command output	false
--help, -h	Show help message	-
--version	Show version	-

Protected Branches

The following branches are never deleted:

• main
• master
• develop
• staging
• production
• Current branch (automatically detected)
• Any branch specified with --keep

Tab Completion

git-prune includes built-in tab completion for bash, zsh, fish, and powershell.

Bash

# One-time setup
git-prune completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/git-prune

# Or add to ~/.bashrc
source <(git-prune completion bash)

Zsh

# Add to ~/.zshrc
source <(git-prune completion zsh)

# Or for oh-my-zsh
git-prune completion zsh > ~/.oh-my-zsh/completions/_git-prune

Fish

git-prune completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/git-prune.fish

PowerShell

git-prune completion powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

After setup, you can use tab completion:

git-prune --<TAB>       # Shows all available flags
git-prune --dry-<TAB>   # Completes to --dry-run

Examples

Example 1: First-time use

$ git-prune --dry-run

ℹ Git Branch Pruning Tool
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ℹ Current branch: main

ℹ Protected branches (will not be deleted):
  - main
  - master
  - develop
  - staging
  - production

ℹ Fetching remote information...
✓ Remote information updated

ℹ Analyzing local branches...

⚠ Found 3 stale branch(es) to delete:
  ✗ feature-old
  ✗ bugfix-123
  ✗ experiment

ℹ Summary:
  - Protected branches: 5
  - Active branches: 2
  - Stale branches: 3

ℹ Dry run mode - no branches were deleted
ℹ To delete these branches, run without --dry-run flag

Example 2: Safe deletion (merged only)

# Only delete branches that have been merged to main
git-prune --merged-only

# This is safer as it won't delete branches with unmerged work

Example 3: Working with multiple remotes

# If you have upstream and origin remotes
git-prune --remote upstream

# Check specific remote
git-prune --remote origin --dry-run

Example 4: Protecting important branches

# Protect branches you're still working on
git-prune --keep feature-wip --keep experimental-ui

How It Works

1. Fetches remote information - Runs git fetch --prune to update remote-tracking branches
2. Identifies local branches - Lists all local branches
3. Categorizes branches:
   • Protected: Default protected branches + current branch + --keep branches
   • Active: Branches that exist on the remote
   • Stale: Branches that don't exist on the remote (candidates for deletion)
4. Optional filtering: If --merged-only is used, only delete stale branches that have been merged
5. Confirmation: Prompts for confirmation unless --force is used
6. Deletion: Removes stale branches using git branch -D

Why git-prune?

Advantages over bash scripts:

• Works anywhere (no copying files between machines)
• Tab completion for all flags
• Cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows)
• Easy updates via go install
• Professional UX with colors and interactive prompts
• Additional safety features (merged-only, verbose mode)

Advantages over manual deletion:

• Batch operations (delete many branches at once)
• Safety checks (protected branches, dry-run mode)
• Consistent behavior across teams
• No mistakes from typos

Troubleshooting

Error: "Not a git repository"

Make sure you're running the command from within a git repository:

cd /path/to/your/repo
git-prune

Error: "Failed to fetch remote"

Check your internet connection and remote configuration:

git remote -v
git fetch --all

Branch isn't being deleted

Check if it's protected:

git-prune --dry-run
# Look at the "Protected branches" list

Command not found

Make sure $GOPATH/bin or $HOME/go/bin is in your PATH:

# Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/go/bin"

Development

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/felixtorres/git-prune.git
cd git-prune
go build -o git-prune

Running tests

go test ./...

Project structure

git-prune/
├── main.go                    # CLI entry point
├── internal/
│   ├── git/git.go            # Git operations
│   ├── prune/prune.go        # Pruning logic
│   └── ui/ui.go              # UI formatting
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
└── README.md

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Author

Felix Torres (@felixtorres)

Acknowledgments

• Built with Cobra for CLI framework
• Terminal styling via Lipgloss
• Interactive prompts via Bubble Tea