Delete broken branch in git

I used git update-ref -d refs/heads/<branch name> to fix this issue. Presumably, this does the same thing as what Rup suggests in the selected answer except it's interfaced via Git's CLI.

I have the same problem git branch -d <branch_name> was not working, And I didn't found anything in .git/packed-refs and .git/refs/heads but I got files in

.git/refs/remotes/origin

with the name of the branches that I was not able to delete locally as well as in remote. But after deleting the files with the branch_name that I wanted to delete it was not showing in local.

To delete it on remote use

git fetch -p origin

The -p --prune option tells that before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that no longer exist on the remote. Then use command

git push origin :<branch_name_you_was_unable_to_delete>

to delete on remote.

And you are done. :)

You obviously don’t need to delete a branch that does not exist. Use git branch to see a list of branches, if it’s not in there, then there is no branch, and you don’t need to delete it. Otherwise make sure to type the name correctly and git branch -D should work.

Nevertheless you don’t need to care much about a broken branch that might be still around but is inaccessible. Branches in Git are in fact simple 40 bytes files, so not really something you need to worry about.

I had the same problem. The branch was on the list of branches whenever I executed the git branch command, but I couldn't delete it.

The solution in my case was simple and a bit unexpected: I checked out the broken branch git checkout broken_branch (yes, it worked), then I checked out back to master and... again executed git branch -D broken_branch.

If branch name contains special characters it needs to be quoted:

$ git branch -D 'ENH-Adding-unit-``julian``-to-``to_datetime``'