I have accidentally created a local branch called -delete
When I try to run commands to delete the branch using
git branch -d -delete git branch -D -delete git branch --delete -delete It does not work and gives the error message back that says this:
error: did you mean `--delete` (with two dashes ?) How can I delete the '-delete' branch?
git branch also honors the -- convention : if you pass -- alone as an argument on the command line, anything after that will not be interpreted as an option.
Starting from @torek's setup in his answer :
$ git branch delete && mv .git/refs/heads/delete .git/refs/heads/-delete $ git branch -delete * master $ git branch -d -delete # fails error: did you mean `--delete` (with two dashes)? $ git branch -d -- -delete # works Deleted branch -delete (was cec927c). $ git branch * master No user-oriented Git command should have let you create that branch name in the first place (I had to resort to trickery to set up the condition myself, as I didn't think to use git update-ref right off), but once you have it, the way to get rid of the bad name is to use git update-ref:
git update-ref -d refs/heads/-delete Here's my example:
$ git branch delete $ mv .git/refs/heads/delete .git/refs/heads/-delete $ git branch -delete diff-merge-base * master $ git branch -d -delete error: did you mean `--delete` (with two dashes)? $ git update-ref -d refs/heads/-delete $ git branch diff-merge-base * master 
git update-ref refs/heads/-delete HEAD. Then of course git update-ref -d refs/heads/-delete.
git update-ref directly like that.I had the same problem. The only way that I found was to delete it by git GUI.
1- Right click in your project directory and then click on git GUI here 2- From the navbar click on branch then click on delete 3- choose the branch from the local branches box and the second box below, then click on the delete
