List all local branches without a remote

Solution 1:

I recommend using git branch --format to specify the exact output you want from the git branch command. By doing that, you can pull out just the refname and the upstream, like this:

git branch --format "%(refname:short) %(upstream)"

It outputs the branches along with the remote branches if they exist, in the following format:

25-timeout-error-with-many-targets
31-target-suggestions refs/remotes/origin/31-target-suggestions
54-feedback-link refs/remotes/origin/54-feedback-link
65-digest-double-publish

Once you have this nicely formatted output, it's as easy as piping it through awk to get your list:

git branch --format "%(refname:short) %(upstream)" | awk '{if (!$2) print $1;}'

Results in the following output:

25-timeout-error-with-many-targets
65-digest-double-publish

The awk portion prints the first column if there is no second column.

Bonus: Create an alias

Make it easy to run by creating an alias in your global .gitconfig file (or wherever):

[alias]
  local-branches = "!git branch --format '%(refname:short) %(upstream:short)' | awk '{if (!$2) print $1;}'"

Bonus: Remote Filtering

If for some reason you have multiple tracking remotes for different branches, it's easy enough to specify which remote you want to check against. Just add the remote name to the awk pattern. In my case, it's origin so I can do this:

git branch --format "%(refname:short) %(upstream)" | awk '$2 !~/\/origin\// { print $1 }'

Important: The backslash needs to be escaped in the alias or else you will have an invalid gitconfig file.

Previous Answer

The previous answer was functionally similar, but used the following as it's starting point. Over time, commenters have pointed out that a regex is unreliable due to the variance possible in a commit message, so I no longer recommend this method. But, here it is for reference:

I recently discovered git branch -vv which is the "very verbose" version of the git branch command.

It outputs the branches along with the remote branches if they exist, in the following format:

  25-timeout-error-with-many-targets    206a5fa WIP: batch insert
  31-target-suggestions                 f5bdce6 [origin/31-target-suggestions] Create target suggestion for team and list on save
* 54-feedback-link                      b98e97c [origin/54-feedback-link] WIP: Feedback link in mail
  65-digest-double-publish              2de4150 WIP: publishing-state

Once you have this nicely formatted output, it's as easy as piping it through cut and awk to get your list:

git branch -vv | cut -c 3- | awk '$3 !~/\[/ { print $1 }'

Solution 2:

git branch (without any options) lists only local branches, but you don't know if they are tracking a remote branch or not.

Usually those local branches should be deleted once merged into master (as seen in this issue of git-sweep):

git branch --no-contains master --merged master | xargs git branch -d

This isn't as complete as you want, but it is a start.

With --merged, only branches merged into the named commit (i.e. the branches whose tip commits are reachable from the named commit) will be listed.

Solution 3:

I have a similar issue. I want to remove all local branches that were tracking remote branches that are now deleted. I am finding that git remote prune origin was insufficient to remove the branches that I want gone. Once the remote is deleted, I want the local to go away too. Here is what worked for me:

From my ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
  prune-branches = !git remote prune origin && git branch -vv | grep ': gone]' | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -r git branch -d

Here is a git config --global ... command for easily adding this as git prune-branches:

git config --global alias.prune-branches '!git remote prune origin && git branch -vv | grep '"'"': gone]'"'"' | awk '"'"'{print $1}'"'"' | xargs -r git branch -d'

NOTE: I changed the -d to -D in my actual configuration, because I don't want to hear Git complain about unmerged branches. You may want this functionality as well. If so, simply use -D instead of -d at the end of that command.

Also, FWIW, your global configuration file would almost always be ~/.gitconfig.

(OS X Fix)

As written, this does not work on OS X because of the use of xargs -r (thanks, Korny).

The -r is to prevent xargs from running git branch -d without a branch name, which will result in an error message "fatal: branch name required". If you don't mind the error message, you can simply remove the -r argument to xargs and you're all set.

However, if you don't want to see an error message (and really, who could blame you) then you'll need something else that checks for an empty pipe. If you might be able to use ifne from moreutils. You would insert ifne before xargs, which will stop xargs from running with empty data. NOTE: ifne considers anything to be not empty, this includes blank lines, so you may still see that error message. I've not tested this on OS X.

Here is that git config line with ifne:

git config --global alias.prune-branches '!git remote prune origin && git branch -vv | grep '"'"': gone]'"'"' | awk '"'"'{print $1}'"'"' | ifne xargs git branch -d'