If I have merged a Git branch to master, can I delete the branch itself?

Question

If I have a feature branch that has been merged into the master branch and will never be needed as a separate branch again, can I delete the feature branch from the local repo and the origin repo?

Answer 1

Delete a local git branch:

git branch -D <branch_name>

Delete remote git branch:

git push origin --delete <branch_name>

If the question is whether it would be a problem: No, if all commits are merged.

Answer 2

Yes. You can delete the single feature branch:

# Delete a single branch that has already been completed locally and then remotely

$ git branch -D my-feature-branch
$ git push origin :my-feature-branch

Alternatively, you can delete all feature branches that have been merged into an integration branch:

# The following command deletes all LOCAL branches that have been merged into the current commit, where the branch name starts with 'feature', except for branch 'integration'.
# You will need to remove the 'echo' to actually run it.

$ git branch --merged | grep -i feature | grep -v integration | xargs -i echo git branch -D {}

# The following command deletes all REMOTE branches that have been merged into the current commit, where the branch name starts with 'feature', except for branch 'integration'.
# You will need to remove the 'echo' to actually run it.

$ git branch -r --merged | grep -i feature | grep -v integration | cut -d '/' -f 2 | xargs -n 1 echo git push --delete origin

# The following command deletes all REMOTE branches that have been merged into master
# You will need to remove the 'echo' to actually run it.

$ git checkout master
$ git merge origin/master --ff-only
$ git branch -r --merged | grep -v master | cut -d '/' -f 2 | xargs -n 1 echo git push --delete origin

Answer 3

If you think you've merged the branch, then it's perfectly safe to delete using git branch -d <branchName> or git branch --delete <branchName>, as they won't delete a branch that hasn't been merged. The lowercase d will cause git to warn you if the branch hasn't merged the branch, but if you want to delete a branch without keeping the most recent commits, then git branch -D will force a delete.

To delete a remote branch, use git push origin :<branchName>, or git push origin --delete <branchName>.