How can I search for all branches created by a specific user in a repository?

[JamesIves]

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Does anyone know if there's a way to search for all branches created by a specific user within a repository? When I go to the Branches > All tab I can only query down on the name of the branch, not who actually created it. If I prefix the username in the branch name it will work, but there's cases where branch naming standards aren't always followed.

I'm looking for a strictly GUI related solve for this.

[shaashvat01]

Hey,

If you go to Branches -> All Branches -> All -> click the 3 dots and select Activity -> Under second button that says "All Activity" select "Branch creations".

Hope that helps!

[cipher20000]

Currently, GitHub’s web UI doesn’t provide a direct, built-in filter to list all branches created by a specific user in a repository.
However, you can still view this information through the Activity log in the repository’s branches view.
✅ GUI Method:

Go to Repository → Branches → All branches

Click the ⋯ (three dots) menu on the top-right

Select Activity → Branch creations

This view shows all branch creation events, including who created each branch and when

From there, you can easily identify branches created by a particular user.
💡 Notes:

There’s no native search or filter by username yet — but you can use your browser’s search (Ctrl + F) to find that user in the activity list.

GitHub CLI (gh api) or REST API can fetch the same data programmatically if you ever need an automated way.

Hopefully GitHub adds a user-based branch filter in future updates, but for now this Activity filter is the best GUI-based approach.

[Shreytan]

Unfortunately, there’s no way in the GitHub web UI (GUI) to filter or search branches by the user who created them. The Branches → All page only supports filtering by branch name, not metadata like author or creation date.

If you just need to see who created each branch, your only options right now are:

Use the Git CLI:

git for-each-ref --format='%(authorname): %(refname:short)' refs/remotes/origin/

That will list each branch along with the author who created the tip commit (which usually corresponds to the branch creator).

Use the GitHub API:
You can query all branches and then check the commit history for each branch’s first commit to see who created it. Example endpoint:

GET /repos/:owner/:repo/branches

Then fetch commit info with:

GET /repos/:owner/:repo/commits/:sha

Enforce naming conventions moving forward (like prefixing branches with usernames or JIRA IDs) , that’s the only way to make GUI searches work cleanly.

So for now, there’s no built-in GUI filter by creator — it’s either CLI, API, or a naming policy workaround. Hopefully GitHub adds a “Created by” filter at some point; it’d be super useful for larger teams.