Remove all git local branches except "main"

Working locally would tempt to acummulate a lot of git branches locally, most of the time we want to keep only the "main" branch, to execute this just run:

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

Explanation

• The first section git branch list all the branches locally.
• grep -v "main" filter out from the output branches list the main branch
• xargs git branch -D runs git branch -D to all the branch items inside the branch list

Happy Coding!

Comments

[Cody Antonio Gagnon]

Great to see how easy ‘xargs’ can make things!
Curious if there’s an easy way to also filter out other default branch names like “master”

[Eduard]

You can use grep -Ev 'main|master' the E adds "extended regex" and the main|master is regex for "main or master".

You can also add other regex patterns like "branches that begin with foo-" for example.

[Jeff]

egrep for advanced regex.

[eren yeager]

nice

[eren yeager]

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