I use git for various projects (personal repositories only), and I want to do some housekeeping.

I have a downloaded git project tree that has a large history of commits. After downloading I made a few more myself. However, I do not need anything apart from the latest commit at the time I downloaded it, and the subsequent commits that I made. All the prior commits take up a lot of space, and I'd like to get rid of them.

What I should have done is delete the .git folder after download and create a new personal repository going forward - but I didn't.

So my question is this: can I clean up the repository so that everything prior to commit X is removed, as if it had never existed, but so that subsequent commits are maintained? If so, how? Also if possible, if there were multiple branches at that time, can I remove other branches also?

(Not sure if this is possible as I think one of git's claims is how hard it is to lose old data by mistake).

CodePudding user response：

I suggest you to squash your local commits by:

git log --oneline

# Write down the hash commit prior to your first commit

git rebase -i <commit-hash>

# Now a text editor will open, so change **pick** into **squash** for the second commit and following, then save and exit editor...

Now, all your new commits will be merged into your latest one.

You are ready to push it.

Here a short tutorial.

CodePudding user response：

This is what I tested;

• Make a backup of your repo first.
• Find the oldest commit.
• Run git rebase -i <oldest-commit>, and mark all commits except those you want to keep as drop.
• Run git remote remove origin.
• Run git reflog expire --all --expire=now.
• Run git gc --aggressive.