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How to Delete a git Remote Branch

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Keeping a tidy repository is important; not just a tidy codebase, but a tidy repository in as far as not having spare branches rotting around.  Generally the main repository doesn't keep multiple branches but sometimes you need to push to a main repository simply to get Travis CI to run tests.  Once a branch is merged, for example, we no longer need it around.

Deleting a branch on a local host machine repo is easy:

git branch -d <branch_name>

To remove a branch from the remote git repository, like a GitHub-hosted repository, you can execute:

git push <remote_name> --delete <branch_name>

If you learned something here, check out Delete Merged Branches with git!

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Discussion

  1. André Jaenisch

    It is even easier to delete a remote branch!

    git push origin :BRANCH_NAME

    Note the colon before the branch.

  2. Josh

    You can also do 

    git push :BRANCH_NAME

    – Note the colon, that states to delete the remote branch!

    • Josh

      So it seems like it parsed my placeholders as HTML;

      git push origin :develop

      Would delete develop branch on the origin remote.

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