Git - how to remove branch from checkout autocomplete

Question

I've deleted some local branches via git branch -d branchname , but they are still exist in autocomplete (when I put git checkout , then press tab key, I see all deleted branches in list).

I've tried to make git gc and git prune , but nothing changes.

Answer 1

TL;DR - the real answer:

$ git remote prune origin

Slightly more details:

git branch -d foo-branch will fail to delete if foo-branch is not merged into your current branch.

It's also a good idea to clean up old branches on a remote if they've already been merged. You can do this from the commandline by git push origin :foo-branch .

However, the old "phantom" branch foo-branch will linger for autocompleting git checkout. Apparently git is caching the branches available on the remote. By calling:

$ git remote prune origin

You can clear the local cache of what branches are available on the git remote.

I can reproduce the OP's issue for git 2.2.1 (and probably earlier versions) on OSX.

Answer 2

If you are sure that you do not want the branch, you can remove it from your local and the remote like this:

$ git branch -D branchname
$ git push origin :branchname

Then it will stop appearing in autocomplete results.

Answer 3

You've probably tried to delete an unmerged branch, so git branch -d branchname has not deleted it. You can check if the branch still exists with:

git branch -a

If you're really sure to delete the ~branch even if is not merged` you can force the deletion with:

git branch -D branchname

Answer 4

I had this problem and the previous solutions didn't work for me. It turned out that I had a tag in the repo with the same name as the old deleted branch. You can delete the tag with:

git tag -d [tagname]

To delete it remotely:

git push origin :refs/tags/[tagname]

Thanks to https://nathanhoad.net/how-to-delete-a-remote-git-tag

Answer 5

Note that pushing the branch deletion ( git push origin :branchname ) is easier in Git 2.13 (Q2 2017), since the completion script learned to complete " git push --delete b<TAB> " (to complete branch name to be deleted).

See commit 723c1d5 (22 Apr 2017) by Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason ( avar ) .
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit f70b541 , 26 Apr 2017)}

Answer 6

I realize this is really, really old, but I just ran into this issue, and in my case, I had pruned the branches in origin , but not the ones in origin-http .

I don't normally use http for cloning, so this is not typically an issue, but...welp.

Once I did git remote prune origin-http , it fixed the problem for me.