How to View Merged and Unmerged Branches in Git

This article discusses how we can list merged and unmerged branches in Git. Git branching encourages the convergent evolution of code.

This is where we create a branch as a temporary space to work on a feature and then merge the branch with its origin. How do we go about listing merged and unmerged branches in Git?

View Merged and Unmerged Branches in Git

We have created multiple branches off the master branch. How can we list all the branches that we have merged to our master branch?

We can use the git branch command to display a list of all the branches merged to the master branch, as illustrated below.

$ git branch --merged master

This will list all the local branches merged to the master branch. What if we want to list the branches merged to our HEAD, i.e., the current checkout branch?

We can run the git branch command, as shown below.

$ git branch --merged

This will list all the branches that have been merged into the currently checked-out branch. Note that this command only displays local branches.

As illustrated below, you can add the -r flag to display remote branches.

$ git branch -r merged

Let’s say we wanted to list all the branches that have not yet been merged. How do we go about it?

We can add the --no-merged flag to the git branch command, as shown below.

$ git branch --no-merged

This will display all the branches that have not yet been merged into your current HEAD.

In conclusion, we can use the git branch command to list merged and unmerged branches, as discussed above. Adding the -r flag will display the remote branches only.