Even so, there are a few different ways to access a Git repo depending on your chosen app and code editor. Git itself offers a simple set of commands and gives you lots of power without the need to crack open a textbook. We’ll talk about what to do with unmerged changes too.įrom there, we’ll talk about errors you might see, then how to restore a deleted local branch.Īt the end, we’ll take a brief look at remote branches and how to delete them too. How To Perform a “Git Delete” on a Local BranchĪcross the rest of this tutorial, we’ll show you how to carry out a git delete on a local branch. We’ll give you an insight into this later. While you can recover branches to a certain extent, this is work you won’t want to perform when required.

It’s also a good idea to ensure that you won’t need any of the commits within a temporary branch before you perform a git delete. This will ensure that every branch has an up-to-date reference, and by extension, the most current code available. Given the perils of deleting a branch with unmerged changes, it’s important to not run a git delete on a local branch until you carry out a code merge. When To Perform a “Git Delete” on a Local Branch Regardless, it brings up another good point about when to delete branches. This is something we’ll talk about in more detail later. As such, the main branch won’t have an up-to-date reference commit.

Unmerged changes: If you don’t merge changes, you’ll have one branch that’s not as up to date as the main branch.

In technical terms, this is akin to moving the main branch reference to catch up with your secondary branch.

Merged changes: Once you merge a branch with the main one, the code will be as up to date as possible.

For now, understand that there are two different types of changes: Later on, we’ll talk about branch recovery, and what’s possible because of those commits remaining in your repo. Because of this, when you delete a local Git branch, the commits will still remain. On a technical level, a branch is only a pointer to a specific commit - a section of code you want to include in your main branch. Tidy up your local Git branch with help from this guide 🧹 Click to Tweet What Happens When You Delete a Local Git Branch? However, it’s a good idea to understand what happens under the hood when it comes to using this command, as it won’t clear everything relating to the branch from your repo. Otherwise, it could introduce poor performance for your team until you stage and tweak a project.Īs you’ll see later, performing a git delete on a local branch is straightforward, for the most part. Because of this, you’ll want to keep open branches to a minimum.

Potential performance: Even if your core code is performant, a branch might not be, given that you’re working on it.

One way to reduce the size of a repo is to delete branches you don’t need.

Repository file size: While Git repos are often small enough to be inconsequential to the size of a project, you should still keep an eye on it.

This also makes your project and repo easier to navigate. The same goes for working with a Git repo: When you finish your work, you’ll merge changes and delete any branches you no longer need.

General housekeeping: At home, when you finish cooking, you wash the utensils and put them away.

However, once you finalize the merge, those branches don’t disappear.Īs such, there are a few reasons why you’d want to delete a local Git branch: This means you’ll often have a lot of branches open at once, depending on the project and team. Once you complete your work, you’ll commit the changes, then look at merging them with the main branch, possibly in an online repo such as GitHub. In contrast, almost every other branch you create will have a temporary shelf life.

This is the only branch that has some permanency. Your production code will be in the main branch. This will be a regular action for you, and there are a number of solid reasons to do so. However, you’ll also need to carry out a git delete on a local branch. There’s also no danger of making a change to working code or stepping on other changes in the meantime. When it’s time to bring those changes back into the core code, you’ll check and merge them.īranches let everyone on a team collaborate on the same project, independent of one another. Instead, you’ll create a duplicate branch of the main repo, then carry out the changes you need within your branch.

This will contain working production code that you won’t want to edit. Often, you’ll have a primary repo (the nominal names are “main” and “trunk”). In fact, you can’t have a working Git repo without a branch. Git repositories are a collection of branches - duplicates of the core code within.

Git delete branch