GitHub - Clean a Branch

January 13, 2026

After merging, we may still see the release branch like this

(.venv) coo:~/Documents/DevOps/GCS-Cloud$ git branch -a
  develop
* main
  release/2.0
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
  remotes/origin/develop
  remotes/origin/feature/witt_test
  remotes/origin/main
  remotes/origin/release/2.0

After running “git fetch –prune”, the remote branch was updated but the local branch remained unchanged.

(.venv) coo:~/Documents/DevOps/GCS-Cloud$ git fetch --prune
From https://dev.azure.com/nobuops/GCS-Cloud/_git/GCS-Cloud
 - [deleted]         (none)     -> origin/release/2.0
remote: Azure Repos
remote: Found 1 objects to send. (0 ms)
Unpacking objects: 100% (1/1), 328 bytes | 82.00 KiB/s, done.
   47ecf4f..90e2de3  main       -> origin/main
(.venv) coo:~/Documents/DevOps/GCS-Cloud$ git branch -a
  develop
* main
  release/2.0
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
  remotes/origin/develop
  remotes/origin/feature/witt_test
  remotes/origin/main

To clean up the repository completely, manually delete the local branch

(.venv) coo:~/Documents/DevOps/GCS-Cloud$ git branch -d release/2.0 
Deleted branch release/2.0 (was e4f13e0).
(.venv) coo:~/Documents/DevOps/GCS-Cloud$ git branch -a
  develop
* main
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
  remotes/origin/develop
  remotes/origin/feature/witt_test
  remotes/origin/main

Deleting Unneeded Remote Branches

PS C:\Code\repo\BloodPresure> git branch -a
* develop
  main
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
  remotes/origin/develop
  remotes/origin/feature/additional_attributes
  remotes/origin/hotfix/update_page
  remotes/origin/main

To delete the remote branch “feature/additional_attributes”

git push origin --delete feature/additional_attributes

# Update Local references to match the remote repository
git fetch --prune

See also:

GitHub - Create a New Repo

GitHub - Create a New Branch

GitHub - Pull Latest Change

GitHub - Pull Request (Azure DevOps)

GitHub - Chean a Branch

GitHub - Delete a Branch

GitHub - Create a Tag

GitHub - Delete a Tag