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@leoapost
Created December 17, 2012 13:55
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Delete all remote branches, except master
# Replace REMOTE_NAME with your remote name (e.g. origin)
git branch -r | grep REMOTE_NAME/ | grep -v 'master$' | grep -v HEAD| cut -d/ -f2 | while read line; do git push REMOTE_NAME :$line; done;
@Moriarty16
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Perfect idea. Save a lot of work.
And to be cautious, perhaps do git branch -r | grep REMOTE_NAME/ | grep -v 'master$' | grep -v HEAD| cut -d/ -f2 | while read line; do echo $line; done; before delete.

@apoorv-mishra
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Might want to try git branch -r | grep origin/ | grep -v 'master$' | grep -v HEAD | cut -d/ -f2 | parallel git push origin --delete, which is faster. Refer https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/.

@kirtangajjar
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@leoapost This command does not work for branches with / in its name. To fix this, you need to replace cut -d/ -f2 with cut -d/ -f2-

git branch -r | grep REMOTE_NAME/ | grep -v 'master$' | grep -v HEAD| cut -d/ -f2- | while read line; do git push REMOTE_NAME :$line; done;

@xhliu
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xhliu commented Jan 7, 2019

Works gr8, thanks 4 sharing.

@vinayf
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vinayf commented Feb 21, 2019

Sweeeeet, thanks for sharing!

@VishwasShashidhar
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This is great! Thank you for sharing!

@mohshannan
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Thanks for sharing

@marnee01
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Thanks to the OP and others who added additional info. Very helpful!

@jmsalcido
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thanks

@xtqqczze
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xtqqczze commented Sep 30, 2025

#!/bin/sh
# git-purge-remote.sh
# Deletes all remote branches for a given remote, except HEAD and main.

# Name of the remote to purge. Change if needed.
REMOTE_NAME='origin'

# List all remote branches for the given remote, excluding HEAD and main.
# Pipe the branch names to git push to delete them
#   xargs -r prevents git push from running if there are no branches
git for-each-ref \
    --format='%(refname:strip=3)' \
    --exclude="refs/remotes/$REMOTE_NAME/HEAD" \
    --exclude="refs/remotes/$REMOTE_NAME/main" \
    "refs/remotes/$REMOTE_NAME" \
| xargs -r git push "$REMOTE_NAME" --delete

https://gist.github.com/xtqqczze/047dd27ddc5bc5802e12d9a84a8f52e4

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