How to keep branches in sync when using Git Flow

This is the workflow we currently follow:

Finish a feature and merge it into develop branch
Create a release branch from develop
Run build scripts on release branch
Create a pull request to merge the release branch into master
Accept the release branch pull request and merge
The master branch can then deploy to live server by running deploy command

This all works great, except in my Git repo my branches are out of sync master is now behind develop because it doesn't have the merge commits that happened from the pull request merging the release branch into develop. But master is also ahead of develop as it now contains merge commits from the pull request to get the release branch into master

I am able to click sync in Bit Bucket to get all the branches up to date, but this just feels like an odd process to go through and would be nicer to keep the branches in sync automatically.

Or, does it not really matter that they are out of sync?

Here is a link to Git Flow process in case you are unfamiliar with it: http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/

Thanks.

When you merge the release branch to master you either merge develop also and push the updated develop branch or create a new one from the master. If you merge develop and push then everyone who has access to develop will get updated develop branch on next update.

Your master and remotes master are out of sync as you have not taken update from the remote. This you have to do! :)

Adding nwinkler's answer for better visibility as answer:

You need to merge back into develop after doing the release. In our workflow, I merge the master branch back into develop after the release. That way you get all of the changes from the release merge and you make sure that you can merge everything into master when you do the next release. Looks like that last step is missing from your workflow

If you got what you wanted then please accept it and close it!

Hope it helped!