Subject: How to delete large files

From: Nils Homer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:03:44 -0700

I wish to delete some large offending files (10MB to >100MB each) from my
git repository (git://bfast.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/bfast/bfast).  The
current size of the repo is 656MB.

I created a backup of my repository and then searched for such offending
files using a script found here:
http://stubbisms.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/git-script-to-show-largest-pack-ob
jects-and-trim-your-waist-line/
where I modified the script to output in MB instead of KB.

This gave me a list of files that I wanted to delete:
-e   size  pack                                      SHA
location
113  113   f9f2faab597d4f8ccbfac2864347dbc256353fbf
tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
113  113   926b1ba880a26354c4a6b9391985f57fbc9a1174
tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
113  113   e568480bcb8239e6d1ed8d2da86c309c0d3d101b
tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
113  113   e3c0ee53f20e8ebfb60eaefcd7b405168c26a565
tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
103  103   ee2ee50c5075d05d29764c8d4b9acc2acedda919
tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
35   35    319c75945c27096093dbab5a0bf6a9a08089bc2d
tests.long/data/data.tar.gz
11   11    805193c74ceeffca9da3a2788545e701d77e1caf  tests/save/save.tar.gz
11   11    658e4a78c1028875ab597d6bde5823cd6a1694b9  tests/save/save.tar.gz

So I decided to remove these files using:
git filter-branch --index-filter "git rm -rf --cached --ignore-unmatch
tests.long/save/save.tar.gz tests.long/data/data.tar.gz
tests/save/save.tar.gz" HEAD

I then ran:
rm -rf .git/refs/original
git reflog expire --expire=now ‹all
git gc --prune=now

Still (using du h) the repository is 656MB and I can see the above files in
the revision list:
git rev-list --all --objects | grep tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
ee2ee50c5075d05d29764c8d4b9acc2acedda919 tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
e568480bcb8239e6d1ed8d2da86c309c0d3d101b tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
f9f2faab597d4f8ccbfac2864347dbc256353fbf tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
926b1ba880a26354c4a6b9391985f57fbc9a1174 tests.long/save/save.tar.gz
e3c0ee53f20e8ebfb60eaefcd7b405168c26a565 tests.long/save/save.tar.gz

Could this be because of tags that I had previously created?

I am running git version 1.6.3.3.  I appreciate any help in advance,

Nils Homer