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gitdisk

How to reduce disk space usage in a large repository?


I have a git repository with about 1 year of development history, and it is already 37GB. How can I minimize the size in a way where I will delete the old history? That is, I only need the history that covers the last 2 months, others can be removed.


Solution

  • The three main options are:

    On the last point, see "How do I remove the old history from a git repository?", using a script like this one (with the SHA1 of the commit from 2 months ago, as a parameter)

    #!/bin/bash
    git checkout --orphan temp $1
    git commit -m "Truncated history"
    git rebase --onto temp $1 master
    git branch -D temp
    
    # The following 2 commands are optional - they keep your git repo in good shape.
    git prune --progress # delete all the objects w/o references
    git gc --aggressive # aggressively collect garbage; may take a lot of time on large repos
    

    Since it rewrites the history, you will need a git push --force.
    Since the OP is pushing to git.assembla.com (see discussion), this issue clearly states

    You need to enable the --force option.
    This is done from the Git repository Settings tab. You need to be an 'Owner' on the space to see the settings tab.