stale-branches

Lists local git branches that have had no commits for a while, and can delete them safely.

stale-branches                          # branches idle for 30+ days
stale-branches --days 90                # custom threshold
stale-branches --keep main --keep dev   # never list or delete these
stale-branches --delete                 # ask before deleting each one

Example:

$ stale-branches --keep staging
feature/old-experiment                   idle   662 days  last commit by dev
feature/old-login                        idle   662 days  last commit by dev

Deletion uses git branch -d, so git refuses to delete branches that aren't merged. Git counts a branch as merged when its commits are already in the branch you are on (or in its upstream), so run --delete from your main branch. The tool never force-deletes anything.

Always skipped, even without --keep:

• main, master, develop and the remote's default branch (origin/HEAD)
• the current branch
• branches checked out in another worktree

Needs Python 3.7+ and git. No other dependencies.

Install

macOS and Linux: copy stale-branches somewhere on your PATH and make it executable:

chmod +x stale-branches
./stale-branches

Windows: there is no executable bit, so run it through Python:

python stale-branches --keep main

Tests

python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

The tests create throwaway repositories and run the real script against them. GitHub Actions runs them on Linux, Windows and macOS.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.