Clean Remote Branches With Prune

Clean Remote Branches With Prune | Generated by AI

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git fetch --prune is a way to keep your local references to remote branches clean and up-to-date.

What it does

git fetch normally updates your local copy of the remote’s branches (like origin/main, origin/feature-x) without touching your own local branches.
Over time, the remote repository might delete or rename some branches. Without cleanup, your local repo will still show those old remote-tracking branches (e.g., origin/feature-old).
Adding --prune tells Git: “If the remote no longer has a branch, delete my corresponding remote-tracking reference.”

So, after running git fetch --prune, your local list of remote branches matches exactly what the remote currently has.

Example

Remote has branches: main, feature-a.
You run git fetch → you now have origin/main, origin/feature-a.
Someone deletes feature-a on the remote.
If you run git fetch, you’ll still see origin/feature-a locally (stale reference).
If you run git fetch --prune, Git will notice feature-a is gone and remove origin/feature-a from your local repo.

Why it’s useful

Keeps git branch -r (remote branches list) clean.
Avoids confusion when switching or merging into branches that no longer exist upstream.
Often used with aliases (e.g., git fetch -p) or set as default with:
```
git config fetch.prune true
```

That way, every git fetch automatically prunes stale branches.

Do you want me to also explain how pruning interacts with tags (since git fetch --prune only handles branches by default, but tags behave differently)?

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