How to Get All Branches in Git

Working with multiple branches is a fundamental part of using Git. Whether you’re trying to see what you have locally or what exists on the remote (like GitHub), Git provides simple commands to list all available branches.

Table of Contents

🧭 1. List All Local Branches

To see branches available on your local machine, run:

git branch

This will output something like:

* main
  feature/login
  bugfix/header

The * indicates your current branch.

🌐 2. List All Remote Branches

To see branches that exist on the remote repository (e.g., GitHub), run:

git branch -r

Example output:

origin/HEAD -> origin/main
origin/main
origin/feature/payment

🔄 3. List All Local and Remote Branches Together

To view both local and remote branches, use:

git branch -a

This will show something like:

* main
  feature/ui
  remotes/origin/main
  remotes/origin/feature/api

🔁 4. Update Remote Branch Info

Sometimes the remote list is outdated. To refresh it:

git fetch --all

This updates your knowledge of all branches from the remote.

🧠 Pro Tips

To check which remote branches are not yet checked out locally, compare git branch -a with git branch.
To create a local branch from a remote one: git checkout -b local-name origin/remote-branch-name

📌 Summary

Task	Command
List local branches	`git branch`
List remote branches	`git branch -r`
List all (local + remote)	`git branch -a`
Update remote refs	`git fetch --all`