Removing a File from Git History¶

Sometimes you need to wipe all traces of a file from a Git repo.

You may need to do this if you accidentally add and commit a large file, or if you add a file that contains personal information.

There is a tool made for this called git filter-repo.

Installing `git-filter-repo`¶

sudo apt install git-filter-repo

Or, install manually via Python's pip:

pip install git-filter-repo

Optionally, make a backup just in case.

cp -r repo backup_repo

Then use filter-repo

git filter-repo --path path/to/file --invert-paths

--path path/to/file: The file you want to remove
--invert-paths: Inverts filtering logic, which means everything except the specified file is kept.

Then force push (if your unwanted file is in the remote repo).

git push origin main --force --all

This step is optional, but cleans up old references so that nothing is referencing the deleted file.

rm -rf .git/refs/original
git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --prune=now

This is considered deprecated, but it still works. This tool is already built into git, and does not require any additional tools to be installed.

git filter-branch --force --index-filter "git rm --cached --ignore-unpatch path/to/file" \
    --prunce-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

This rewrites the history, removing the file from all commits

Note: This method only removes the file from the branch you're currently on.

You can use rebase for this. This method could be easier if you just need to work with recent commits.

Find the commit hash where the file was added:

git log -- path/to/file

Interactively rebase to remove the commit:

git rebase -i commit-hash^

Remove the file and amend the commit:

git rm --cached path/to/file
git commit --amend --no-edit

Then continue the rebase process:

git rebase --continue

Then force push (if your unwanted file is in the remote repo).

git push --force origin main