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If you don’t see the branch dropdown in the editor toolbar at all, it may be hidden by a personal preference. See Show the branch selector. If a branch that exists in your repository doesn’t appear in the web editor’s branch dropdown, the branch is not deleted. Before you type a search, the dropdown intentionally lists only:
  • Branches created in the web editor that don’t have a merged or closed pull request.
  • Branches with an open pull request or merge request targeting your deployment branch.
Type in the dropdown’s search field to find branches that aren’t in the default list:
  • Branches pushed directly to GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket without a pull request appear when your search matches part of the branch name. These rows show only the branch name, without pull request status or contributors.
  • Branches whose pull request has been merged or closed appear when your search matches the branch name or pull request title.
Branches with a pull request opened from a fork still don’t appear, because the branch lives in the fork rather than in your repository. See Preview deployment not created for a fork branch for related fork limitations.

Work with a branch that has no pull request

You can open a branch without a pull request by searching for it in the dropdown and selecting it. Until a pull request against your deployment branch exists, branch-specific editor features are unavailable: automatic commits are skipped, the review view can’t load a diff, and you can’t rename or delete the branch from the editor. Open a pull request or merge request for the branch against your deployment branch, from a branch in the same repository rather than a fork. The branch then appears in the editor’s branch dropdown with full editor support. For more on creating and switching branches, see Work with branches.