Converting git repository to shallow?

Question

How can I convert an already cloned git repository to a shallow repository?

The git repository is downloaded through a script outside of my control so I cannot do a shallow clone.

The reason for doing this is to save disk space. (Yes, I'm really short on disk space so even though a shallow repository doesn't save much, it is needed.)

I already tried

git repack -a -d -f -depth=1 

But that actually made the repository larger.

Answer 1

This worked for me:

git pull --depth 1 git gc --prune=all 

This leaves the tags and reflog laying around, each of which reference additional commits that can use up space. Note that I would not erase the reflog unless severely needed: it contains local change history used for recovery from mistakes.

There are commands on how to erase the tags or even the reflog in the comments below, and a link to a similar question with a longer answer.

If you still have a lot of space used you may need to remove the tags, which you should try first before removing the reflog.

Answer 2

You can convert git repo to a shallow one in place along this lines:

git show-ref -s HEAD > .git/shallow git reflog expire --expire=0 git prune git prune-packed 

Make sure to make backup since this is destructive operation, also keep in mind that cloning nor fetching from shallow repo is not supported! To really remove all the history you also need to remove all references to previous commits before pruning.