I backed up my database to Git just so I could get the database at my home computer.
I don't want this file to be versioned. It was just a one-time thing really.
Can I delete it for good, so Git doesn't keep track of it going forward or historically?
I always find Guides: Completely remove a file from all revisions feed helpful.
To remove the file called
Rakefile:git filter-branch --force --index-filter \ 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch Rakefile' \ --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --allThis command will run the entire history of every branch and tag, changing any commit that involved the file
Rakefile, and any commits afterwards. Commits that are empty afterwards (because they only changed the Rakefile) are removed entirely.
git push --all --force), or else they will face all kinds of problems when performing a pull.git fetch then git status. If you see that the branches have diverged, stash your changes and git reset --hard origin/<branch>.
Update for remote repository:
git filter-branch -f --index-filter "git rm -rf --cached --ignore-unmatch FOLDERNAME" -- --all
Replace FOLDERNAME with the file or folder you wish to remove from the given Git repository.
rm -rf .git/refs/original/
git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --prune=now
git gc --aggressive --prune=now
Now push all the changes to the remote repository
git push --all --force
This would clean up the remote repository.
rm -rf ... ... git gc --aggressive --prune=now) in the remote repository remove the files in remote repository too. But you need write-access to the remote repository folder.You can also use BFG for ease.
The BFG is a simpler, faster alternative to git-filter-branch for cleansing bad data out of your Git repository history:
Removing Crazy Big Files
Removing Passwords, Credentials & other Private data
bfg --delete-files YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA
Or just replace all the occurrences of some file:
bfg --replace-text passwords.txt
You can with git filter-branch's --index-filter.
I would like to share the simplest and easy-to-understand solution which worked for me.
First clone a fresh copy of your repository, using the --mirror flag:
git clone --mirror https://github.com/username/youproject.git
Then download latest version of the BFG JAR file from BFG Repo-Cleaner. Rename it as bfg.jar, and paste it inside the YourRepoName.git folder.
Then run following lines in Git Bash.
java -jar bfg.jar --delete-files yourfilename (only the file name is needed; there isn't any need to mention the path)
git reflog expire --expire=now --all && git gc --prune=now --aggressive (it will strip out the unwanted dirty data which has been expelled out due to the above command)
I faced an issue here. My project had open pull requests. If there are any open pull requests then you need to run this command:
git show-ref | cut -d' ' -f2 | grep 'pull-request' | xargs -r -L1 git update-ref -d
After this, you can simply push the master branch.
git push -u origin master
It’s done. But remember to keep a copy in local of old repository before performing above action. All unmerged branches and open pull requests may get deleted.
I reduced my repository size from 40 MB to 4 MB by removing unwanted APK files which got pushed with my commits.
