Removing Big, old Files that do not belong in git [duplicate]

Question

Long story short, there are very big files (like iso files-big) that were pushed into git. Not during my time with the group, but they've been treating the repo like an SVN-VC.

Anywho, how can i removed iso's from the repo and its history, to lighten the repo.

Or

Would it be easier to just move the code to a new repo, losing it's repo?

Answer 1

Long story short, there are very big files (like iso files-big) that were pushed into git

You should use this tool to clean your repository history:

https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/

It is the perfect tool for this kind of task

BFG Repo-Cleaner

an alternative to git-filter-branch.

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

Examples (from the official site)

In all these examples bfg is an alias for java -jar bfg.jar.

# Delete all files named 'id_rsa' or 'id_dsa' :
bfg --delete-files id_{dsa,rsa}  my-repo.git

---

After you have cleaned your repository use this tool to store your large files.

Answer 2

Look at git filter branch and BFG repo cleaner, which was made precisely for this task. Beware that both of these tools rewrite history, which is a dangerous operation. Make sure you know what you are doing, and make backups before you do.