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Juan Belieni
Juan Belieni

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Creating an alias for deleting useless git branches

#git #bash #linux

Sometimes, deleting branches that we are no longer working on can be tedious. For this, you can create an alias to do the hard work for you.

All git aliases are located at the ~/.gitconfig file:

...
[alias]
  cm = commit # Example alias
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The custom alias we will create will delete all branches except master and the current one:

git branch | grep -v "master" | grep -v "^*" | xargs git branch -d
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At ~/.gitconfig:

...
[alias]
  del-branches = !git branch | grep -v "master" | grep -v "^*" | xargs git branch -d
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Finally, you just have to call the alias at your repository directory as a normal git command:

git del-branches
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Top comments (1)

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pbnj profile image
Peter Benjamin (they/them) •

Nice tip.

I have similar commands/aliases for deleting merged branches.

Checkout git-extras for more, fun git commands/aliases.