Removing files from Git history

Removing files from Git history | Generated by AI

Home 2025.12

Question: How to use git filter-repo to remove a file from Git history?

Answer:

git filter-repo is the recommended modern tool (faster and safer than the deprecated git filter-branch or BFG) for rewriting Git history, including permanently removing a specific file from all commits across the repository.

Prerequisites

Install git-filter-repo if not already available (it’s not included in Git by default).
Installation instructions: https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo#installation
Backup your repository first, as history rewriting is destructive and changes commit hashes.
Preferably work on a fresh clone of the repository to avoid safety checks:
```
git clone <repository-url> myrepo-clean
cd myrepo-clean
```

Basic Command to Remove a Single File

To completely remove a file (e.g., path/to/secret.txt) from the entire history:

git filter-repo --path path/to/secret.txt --invert-paths

--path <file>: Specifies the file to target (path relative to repository root).
--invert-paths: Keeps all files except the specified one(s). Without this, it would keep only the specified file and remove everything else.

You can specify multiple files:

git filter-repo --path file1.txt --path file2.config --invert-paths

For Folders/Directories

To remove an entire directory (e.g., old_folder/):

git filter-repo --path old_folder/ --invert-paths

For more complex patterns (e.g., all files matching a glob):

git filter-repo --path-glob '*.secret' --invert-paths

Use --path-glob for globs, --path-regex for regex, or --use-base-name if matching by filename only (ignores path).

Applying to All Branches and Tags

By default, git filter-repo affects all refs. To be explicit:

git filter-repo --path path/to/secret.txt --invert-paths --force

(The --force flag overrides the “fresh clone” safety check if needed.)

After Rewriting History

Verify the file is gone:
```
git log --all -- path/to/secret.txt
```
(Should show no results.)
Clean up: The tool usually repacks automatically, but you can run:
```
git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --prune=now
```
Push changes to remote (requires force push since history is rewritten):
```
git push origin --force --all
git push origin --force --tags
```

Important Warnings

History rewrite changes all commit IDs downstream of affected commits. All collaborators must re-clone the repository or manually recover (see git filter-repo docs for instructions).
Coordinate with your team: Close open pull requests, notify others.
If the file contained sensitive data and was already pushed, old commits may still be accessible temporarily on remotes (e.g., GitHub caches them briefly).
For sensitive data removal, follow GitHub’s full guide if using GitHub.

This process permanently erases the file from history, reducing repository size if it was large.

References:

Back

x-ai/grok-4.1-fast

Donate