Deleting a local or remote branch in Git

Use git branch -d to delete a local branch. Use git push --delete to delete a branch on the remote repository.

Delete a local branch

Make sure you are not on the branch to be deleted :

# Delete local branch 'test'

# First switch to another branch if you are on 'test' branch
$ git checkout master

# Do delete action
$ git branch -d test

If your branch has not been merged, use -D option to force delete it :

$ git branch -d test
error: The branch 'testing' is not fully merged.
If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D test'.

$ git branch -D test
Deleted branch test (was 4f10b4a).

Delete a remote branch

Use --delete option to push command :

# Delete a remote branch 'test' on Git version above v1.7.0
$ git push origin --delete test

The command above is available after Git v1.7.0. If you are using an earlier version :

# Push empty source to remote branch of 'test', meaning deleting it
$ git push origin :test