Git alias to remove all local branches that are gone on remote

GONE.md

Create alias manually in ~/.gitconfig file (recommened):

[alias]
	gone = "!f() { git fetch --all --prune; git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -D; }; f"

Create alias (problematic):

git config --global alias.gone '!f() { git fetch --all --prune; git branch -vv | awk "/: gone]/{print $1}" | xargs git branch -D; }; f'

Usage:

git gone

Blog post:

https://dev.to/iamandrewluca/remove-gone-git-branches-36eh

This command doesn't always work as expected. For me the double quotes used on the awk command result in it printing the entire line from git branch. The solution is to swap the single/double quote usage and escape the variable expansion:

git config --global alias.gone "!f() { git fetch --all --prune; git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print \$1}' | xargs git branch -D; }; f"

This was very obvious when I had a branch most recent commit that had "-P" in the commit message. This was being interpreted by git branch -D and raised an error.

Yes, creating this alias from command line is a little bit problematic because involves a lot of quotes 🙂

Easier would be to open ~/.gitconfig file in a text editor and add it manually

[alias]
	gone = "!f() { git fetch --all --prune; git branch -vv | awk '/: gone]/{print $1}' | xargs git branch -D; }; f"