How to permanently delete a file stored in GIT? [duplicate]
Solution 1:
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 -- --all
This 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.
Solution 2:
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.
Solution 3:
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
check https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/ and https://help.github.com/articles/removing-sensitive-data-from-a-repository/
Solution 4:
You can with git filter-branch's --index-filter
.