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I was looking to clear all unused branches from my git repository. There are around 100 branches.

There is a way to select branches one by one from the BitBucket account and delete it manually. But that approach takes along.

So I have created a script that deletes branches in bulk and supported in Linux/Ubuntu.

Create delete_branch.sh

#!/bin/bash

delete_branch(){
    BRANCH=$1;
    DIR_PATH=<path of your project root>;
    cd ${DIR_PATH}
    echo git push origin --delete ${BRANCH}
    git push origin --delete ${BRANCH}
}

BRANCHES=( branch1 branch2 branch3 ... branchN );

for i in "${BRANCHES[@]}"
do
   : 
    delete_branch $i;
    echo deleting branch ${i};
done

execute this file from terminal by ./delete_branch.sh

Mayank Chauhan
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    It seems you are answering your own question. In this case please keep the question as question only, and then add the answer as answer and accept your own answer. – CherryDT Apr 02 '20 at 12:36
  • please specify what you mean by 'unused'. Your currently included answer hardcodes them in the script, which doesn't seem very re-useable. – TamaMcGlinn Apr 02 '20 at 15:03
  • if you reformulate the answer in your post as something like 'I tried the following script, but the problem is that I have to specify the branches every time', it fits in the SO Q&A format. Currently, you are leaving it up to us to determine what needs improvement, making it better suited for codereview.stackexchange.com – TamaMcGlinn Apr 09 '20 at 05:40

1 Answers1

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For me, 'unused' branches are defined as anything merged into the current branch, that is not called master, develop, or release/*. If you agree, you can use these two bash scripts (put them in PATH, the one calls the other).

The default remote to cleanup is called origin, but this can be specified as the second parameter, and the excluded branches are the third parameter.

cleanupremote.sh

#!/bin/bash

set -e

function listbranches {
  git branch -r --merged | tr -d ' ' | sed "s/$remote\///" | grep -vxE "$excludes"
}

remote=${2:-origin}
excludes=${3:-master|develop|release/.*}

if [ "$1" == "--dry-run" ]; then
  echo "The following branches would be deleted:"
  listbranches
  exit 0;
elif [ "$1" == "--really-delete" ]; then
  echo "Deleting remote branches..."
else
  echo "Error: first parameter must be either --dry-run or --really-delete"
  exit 1
fi

listbranches | deleteremotebranches.sh $remote

deleteremotebranches.sh

#!/bin/bash

set -e
remote=${1:-origin}
xargs git push $remote --delete

Typical usage is to just run cleanupremote.sh to see the switches required, then repeat it with --dry-run, adding to the third parameter until there are no unwanted branches listed:

cleanupremote.sh --dry-run origin 'master|develop|feature/oh_not_that_one_I_need_it'
cleanupremote.sh --really-delete origin 'master|develop|feature/oh_not_that_one_I_need_it'

It is two seperate files so that you could call deletebranches.sh directly, specifying a remote and piping in the branchnames to delete.

TamaMcGlinn
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