# Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time 6 messages from 2026-03-05 to 2026-03-06. Participants: Norbert Kiesel, Johannes Sixt, Junio C Hamano, Erik Cervin Edin. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/65137 ## Norbert Kiesel, 2026-03-05 07:14 Subject: Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAM%2Bg_Nt8vZX4NxPvddJxNvSRgdMWQaLg2O9xzAU1pTHa%3DEt-gw%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi! I have multiple repos with more than 20 worktrees, and sometimes forget the name of a recently added worktree. Therefore it would really be nice if I could use something like ‘git worktree list —created’ to list them by their creation timestamp. Is that something that makes sense to you as well? I could also create a pull request for this if you would like it. Best, Norbert ``` ## Johannes Sixt, 2026-03-05 07:35 Subject: Re: Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time Message-ID: <264862d1-0f83-4d0b-be11-d8e479c7d8da@kdbg.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/264862d1-0f83-4d0b-be11-d8e479c7d8da%40kdbg.org In-Reply-To: ``` Am 05.03.26 um 08:14 schrieb Norbert Kiesel: > I have multiple repos with more than 20 worktrees, and sometimes > forget the name of a recently added worktree. Therefore it would > really be nice if I could use something like ‘git worktree list > —created’ to list them by their creation timestamp. Is that something > that makes sense to you as well? I could also create a pull request > for this if you would like it. I don't think this is warranted as a feature for a special-purpose use-case. Assuming you don't have spaces in your worktree directory names, git worktree list | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs ls -ldtr lists the worktree directories by modification time. The last is the one that was modified most recently. That should help your memory. -- Hannes ``` ## Norbert Kiesel, 2026-03-05 07:41 Subject: Re: Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAM%2Bg_Nsw52JysCsv-FVznh-RAPxYm0kA%3DKj2o%2BKVB5uZpGA0qg%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <264862d1-0f83-4d0b-be11-d8e479c7d8da@kdbg.org> ``` My understanding is that the timestamp of the base worktree directories is updated whenever a new file is created in that directory, and thus this will not preserve the worktree creation time. Therefore, I would like to have an explicit creation timestamp in the worktree metadata. On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 11:35 PM Johannes Sixt wrote: > > Am 05.03.26 um 08:14 schrieb Norbert Kiesel: > > I have multiple repos with more than 20 worktrees, and sometimes > > forget the name of a recently added worktree. Therefore it would > > really be nice if I could use something like ‘git worktree list > > —created’ to list them by their creation timestamp. Is that something > > that makes sense to you as well? I could also create a pull request > > for this if you would like it. > I don't think this is warranted as a feature for a special-purpose > use-case. Assuming you don't have spaces in your worktree directory names, > > git worktree list | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs ls -ldtr > > lists the worktree directories by modification time. The last is the one > that was modified most recently. That should help your memory. > > -- Hannes > ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2026-03-05 15:50 Subject: Re: Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqqzpy46n5.fsf%40gitster.g In-Reply-To: ``` Norbert Kiesel writes: > I have multiple repos with more than 20 worktrees, and sometimes > forget the name of a recently added worktree. Therefore it would > really be nice if I could use something like ‘git worktree list > —created’ to list them by their creation timestamp. Is that something > that makes sense to you as well? I could also create a pull request > for this if you would like it. I do not think we have any _record_ of when each of these worktrees was created, so this is not a realistic request. The output from "git worktree list" may be more than 20 lines, but isn't your terminal taller than 20 lines ;-)? Since very early days of Git, we have created .git/description file that is not used very much (I think it is shown in gitweb). Perhaps worktree should have an equivalent in per-worktree part of their .git/ directory and "git worktree list --verbose" can use its contents in addition to the additional pieces information it already shows, or something like that, perhaps? ``` ## Norbert Kiesel, 2026-03-05 23:36 Subject: Re: Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAM%2Bg_NsX5jdjbhtLznxJ%3DZRtJ4ShEAzTHzkjgnidyDr-a2r%3Dkw%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Wrote a Zsh script that uses the "directory create time" but when a worktree is moved then that will be updated. So would still like to have `git worktree add` store the current timestamp somewhere. ˋˋˋzsh #!/bin/zsh # List git worktrees with creation timestamps, sorted oldest to newest wt_path="" branch="" typeset -a ts_arr wt_arr br_arr flush() { [[ -z $wt_path ]] && return local epoch=$(stat -f '%B' "$wt_path" 2>/dev/null) ts_arr+=("${epoch:-0}") wt_arr+=("$wt_path") br_arr+=("${branch:-(detached)}") wt_path="" branch="" } while IFS= read -r line; do case $line in worktree\ *) flush; wt_path=${line#worktree } ;; branch\ *) branch=${line#branch refs/heads/} ;; detached) branch="(detached)" ;; "") flush ;; esac done < <(git worktree list --porcelain) flush # Find max branch width for column alignment integer max_br=0 for br in "${br_arr[@]}"; do (( ${#br} > max_br )) && max_br=${#br} done # Print first entry (main worktree) always first printf "%s %-${max_br}s %s\n" "$(date -r "${ts_arr[1]}" +"%Y-%m-%d")" "${br_arr[1]}" "${wt_arr[1]}" # Collect remaining entries prefixed with epoch for numeric sort typeset -a rest_lines for (( i=2; i<=${#ts_arr}; i++ )); do rest_lines+=("${ts_arr[$i]} $(printf "%-${max_br}s %s" "${br_arr[$i]}" "${wt_arr[$i]}")") done # Sort numerically by epoch, then replace epoch with formatted date (( ${#rest_lines} > 0 )) && print -l "${(on)rest_lines[@]}" | while IFS= read -r line; do epoch=${line%% *} printf "%s %s\n" "$(date -r "$epoch" +"%Y-%m-%d")" "${line#* }" done ˋˋˋ On Thu, Mar 5, 2026 at 7:50 AM Junio C Hamano wrote: > > Norbert Kiesel writes: > > > I have multiple repos with more than 20 worktrees, and sometimes > > forget the name of a recently added worktree. Therefore it would > > really be nice if I could use something like ‘git worktree list > > —created’ to list them by their creation timestamp. Is that something > > that makes sense to you as well? I could also create a pull request > > for this if you would like it. > > I do not think we have any _record_ of when each of these worktrees > was created, so this is not a realistic request. > > The output from "git worktree list" may be more than 20 lines, but > isn't your terminal taller than 20 lines ;-)? > > Since very early days of Git, we have created .git/description file > that is not used very much (I think it is shown in gitweb). Perhaps > worktree should have an equivalent in per-worktree part of their > .git/ directory and "git worktree list --verbose" can use its > contents in addition to the additional pieces information it already > shows, or something like that, perhaps? ``` ## Erik Cervin Edin, 2026-03-06 13:02 Subject: Re: Feature request: support listing worktrees sorted by creation time Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/aarKxwOiv0XmoS6c%40Eriks-MacBook-Pro.local In-Reply-To: ``` On 26/03/05 07:50AM, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > Since very early days of Git, we have created .git/description file > that is not used very much (I think it is shown in gitweb). Perhaps > worktree should have an equivalent in per-worktree part of their > .git/ directory and "git worktree list --verbose" can use its > contents in addition to the additional pieces information it already > shows, or something like that, perhaps? > I think that sounds like a nice addition. I frequently name the worktree to encode the intent of the worktree, but that can be a bit clunky. Having a way to describe it and/or metadata sounds nice! ```