Visual Studio Code - remove branches deleted on GitHub that still show in VS Code?

Question

In VSCode, after I do a pull request and delete the branch on GitHub, that branch still shows up in Visual Studio Code. If I select the branch, it gives an Error, as expected. <

Answer 1

You don't have to git fetch --prune and restart VSCode anymore.
With VSCode 1.52 (Nov. 2020), you now have:

Git: Prune on fetch

Enabling the git.pruneOnFetch setting will make VS Code run git fetch --prune when fetching remote refs.

No more extra branch locally once they have been deleted from GitHub.

See PR 89249, fixing issue 86813:

Usage:

{
   "git.pruneOnFetch": true
}

Setting is false by default.

This would add the --prune flag to all git fetches.