git filter-branch remove folder failed

Question

I want to remove a folder from commits on my git repo, so I use this commend:

git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf folder' HEAD
git push origin master --force

But there is no any change on my git repo, those commits which contain the folder I want to delete still on git repo.

So I try it again, but there shows:

.git-rewrite already exists please remove it

I don't know what else can I do to remove it from all commits which contain the folder on git repo permanently.

Answer 1

In order to remove a file or directory completely from a git repository you must ensure that it is not referenced anymore.

In git a file (or blob object) is referenced by a tree object which is referenced by either another tree object or a commit object. Commit objects are referenced by branches, tags, in the reflog and so on.

Some time ago I had to completely remove a folder from a project and wrote a blog about it. So I don't want to repeat myself here. Just take a look at Remove directories and files permanently from git page.

I also wrote a swing application that uses the jgit library to to this. Just try GitDirStat. Making a copy of your current repo before is always a good choice.

.git-rewrite already exists please remove it

Just do what the message says. Remove .git-rewrite.

PS: You don't have to use a --tree-filter an index filter will do it faster ;) Then you must use git rm -rf --cached.

Answer 2

Note: The operations that are presented below will override your git history. Be careful what you're doing and backup your repo if you're not sure what you're doing.

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Git

After you removed the folder via filter-branch, like:

git filter-branch -f --tree-filter 'rm -rf folder' HEAD

and you pushed your changes to the repository (git push origin master --force), the objects needs to be dereferenced and garbage collected.

To check what's pointing (tags or branches) to the removed objects, check the following command:

git for-each-ref --format='delete %(refname)' refs/original

Then to deference you need to expire reflog (default is 90 days) and force garbage collection, e.g.

git for-each-ref --format='delete %(refname)' refs/original | git update-ref --stdin
git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --prune=now

then push all your branches and tags to the remote:

git push origin --force --all
git push origin --force --tags

Source: Permanently remove files and folders from Git repo

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Bfg

Alternatively to remove specific files or folders completely, you can use BFG Repo-Cleaner. For example:

$ bfg --delete-folders folder --no-blob-protection my-repo.git

For further details, please follow above link or Advanced Git / Remove sensitive data GitHub page.

Answer 3

I just did

rm -rf .git-rewrite

and it worked!!