How view branches sorted by date in specific format and order

This a short tutorial from a git tricks series.

Let's know how we can list all branches sorted by date.

View branch sorted by date

display a list of all local branches and sort them based on the date of their last commit.

# sort desc (-committerdate)
git branch --sort=-committerdate

# sort asc (committerdate)
git branch --sort=-committerdate

If you’d like to make a custom format you can use for-each-ref with --sort option and --format option to write your format.

git for-each-ref --sort='-committerdate' --format='%(refname)%09%(committerdate)' refs/heads

In the above command, I print the refname first then commitdate in --format option the output will be like this

refs/heads/branch_name commitdate
refs/heads/branch_name2 commitdate

# real output
refs/heads/new_design   Wed Apr 20 12:24:21 2022 +0200

refs/heads/design_assets        Wed Apr 20 11:30:30 2022 +0200

If you want to print the date first then refname, the option format will be like this --format='%(committerdate)%09%(refname)%'

Let’s say you don’t want to print refs/heads and want print just the branch name each time, how we can do this? by using sed.

git for-each-ref --sort='-committerdate' --format='%(refname)%09%(committerdate)' refs/heads | sed 's-refs/heads/--'

#output
branch_name commitdate
branch_name2 commitdate

#real output
new_design      Wed Apr 20 12:24:21 2022 +0200

design_assets   Wed Apr 20 11:30:30 2022 +0200

I find these commands incredibly helpful when returning to work from a weekend or just jumping from project to project. Hopefully, you can use these commands too!

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