How To Delete All Git Branches Except Master

If you wish to delete all Git branches except for one, run the command below. Replace "master" if your main branch is named differently.

git branch | grep -v "master" | xargs git branch -D

Of course, make sure not to be on a branch that will be deleted, or else you will run into an error.

How it works

Let's quickly cover some Unix basics to properly understand the logic of this command.

|, also known as the pipe symbol, serves to take the output of the previous command and feed it as an input to the next one. However, not every command like grep will understand the format of this input. That's where xargs comes into play.

Moving on to the list of subcommands, here's what they mean:

• git branch: list all local branches
• grep -v "master": filter out the word "master" from the list
• xargs git branch -D: delete all branches in the list

Keeping more than 1 branch

Maybe you've got another branch called staging that you wish to preserve as well. To exclude it from the deletion process, simply add it as follows:

git branch | grep -v "master" | grep -v "staging" | xargs git branch -D