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branch gone

Delete local branches whose remote tracking ref has been removed.

This is useful after merged pull requests are cleaned up on the server: the remote branch
is deleted, but git branch -vv still shows the local branch as [origin/feature: gone].
branch gone finds and removes all such stale branches in one step.

Usage

git-wrench branch gone [--path <dir>] [--workspace] [--force] [--yes]
Option Description
--path <dir> Act on a specific directory (scanned up to sync.recurse_depth)
--workspace Act on all configured workspaces instead of the current repo
--force Delete branches with git branch -D (removes even unmerged branches)
--yes Skip the confirmation prompt and delete immediately

What it does

  1. Runs git fetch --prune to refresh the remote-tracking state.
  2. Lists all local branches whose upstream is marked [gone] (i.e. git branch -vv output).
  3. Prints the list and — unless --yes is given — prompts for confirmation.
  4. Deletes confirmed branches with git branch -d (or -D if --force is set).

Examples

# Current repo — interactive prompt
git-wrench branch gone

# All workspaces, skip prompt
git-wrench branch gone --workspace --yes

# Specific directory, force-delete even unmerged branches
git-wrench branch gone --path ~/work --force

Notes

  • Without --force, branches that have unmerged commits cannot be deleted
    (git branch -d refuses). Pass --force to override this safety check.
  • If git fetch --prune fails for a repo (e.g. no network), that repo is skipped
    and counted as an error; other repos still proceed.

See also

  • branch list — see which files each branch has changed
  • branch rebase — rebase feature branches onto the base branch