Is there a way to delete branches in bulk?

Joey Vargas

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Using branches in Bitbucket Server

As some developers tend to forget to delete their branches after they have been merged, we end up with a lot of stale branches that need to get deleted.  Is there a way for me to delete all of the branches that were last modified before a given date?  To prevent this problem from happening again, if you have any suggestions on how to manage so that users delete their branches after merging (the checkbox asking if they want to delete the branch seems to get overlooked).

G__Sylvie_Davies__bit-booster_com_

I presume you want to delete all branches that are already merged into 'master'?

You can do it from the command-line using a combination of 'git branch --merged origin/master' alongside the unix 'xargs' utility:

# Make sure remotes are up to date (with stale remotes purged):
git fetch -p
 
# Initial no-op run --- do the branches to delete look correct?
# Be careful to omit 'master' from the output.
git branch --remote --merged origin/master | grep -v 'master' | cut -b 10- | xargs

# Do the bulk delete!!!  (can take a long time...)
git branch --remote --merged origin/master | grep -v 'master' | cut -b 10- | xargs git push --delete origin

Note:  each line of output from "git branch --remote" will begin with " origin/" and so the "cut -b 10-" removes that.  If your remote is named something other than "origin" you will need to adjust the value "10" in that cut command.

The problem with this approach is that sometimes important branches like 'develop' or 'production' or 'release' might have been merged without any subsequent activity, and so they will get toasted by this.

I recommend installing my free add-on first (Commit Graph for Bitbucket Server) and reviewing all the merged branches first before running the delete.  It's a great way to visually confirm that you're not deleting anything important.  Just uncheck all the options except "master" on the "All Branches Graph", hit reload, and scroll down to visually inspect the branches before deleting.

Here's a live demo of the "All Branches Graph" in action with only 'master' checked:  vm.bit-booster.com/bitbucket

Any branches that you want to keep you can remove from the command above with "grep -v" additions after the initial "grep -v master" component (e.g.,  grep -v 'master' | grep -v 'keep-this' | grep -v 'and-keep-this-too' | etc...).