How to remove merged branches

how-to-remove-merged-branches.md

How to clean up Git branches

This will take a while to do.

1. Make a new clone of your repo.

    git clone <repo> <repo>-bak
    cd <repo>-bak
   

2. Make a backup of all branches locally in case you fuck up something.

    git branch -r | grep -v '\->' | while read remote; do git branch --track "${remote#origin/}" "$remote"; done
    git fetch --all
    git pull --all
    # via https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10312521/how-to-fetch-all-git-branches#10312587
   

3. List all remote branches, oldest first

    git for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(committerdate:short) %(refname:short)'
    # via https://stackoverflow.com/a/16961359/1225741
   

4. Add this to your .(zsh|bash)rc

    git-is-merged() {
        merge_destination_branch=$1
        merge_source_branch=$2
        merge_base=$(git merge-base $merge_destination_branch $merge_source_branch)
        merge_source_current_commit=$(git rev-parse $merge_source_branch)
        if [[ $merge_base == $merge_source_current_commit ]]; then
            echo $merge_source_branch
        fi
    }
    
    git-list-merged() {
        git for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(committerdate:short) %(refname:short)' > /tmp/zsh-git-refs-temp
        while read line; do
            git-is-merged HEAD $(echo $line | awk -F" " '{print $2}')
            #echo $line
        done < /tmp/zsh-git-refs-temp
        rm /tmp/zsh-git-refs-temp
    }
    
    git-rm-merged() {
        git-list-merged | egrep --invert-match '(master|sprint)' > /tmp/zsh-git-refs-merged-HEAD
        while read line; do
            echo git push origin --delete $line
        done < /tmp/zsh-git-refs-merged-HEAD
        rm /tmp/zsh-git-refs-merged-HEAD
    }
   

5. Source the changes in the rc file with . ~/.zshrc or . ~/.bashrc.

6. Run git-rm-merged (it's non-destructive, it will echo out what it would do). Adjust the egrep to exclude branches that you want to leave untouched. Remove the echo if you feel confident about what will get deleted.

7. Again source the file and run git-rm-merged :).

8. Cleanup your rc file or restore the non-destructive version. Keep the repo in place for a couple months to have a way to restore branches if you did actually remove some that had to be left alone.

PS Tell me if it works on bash, I didn't test it there ;).