how to delete all commit history in github? [duplicate]

Asked 5/12, 2012 at 5:5 Answered 23/9, 2014 at 16:43

617

I want to delete all commit history but keep the code in its current state because, in my commit history, there are too many unused commits.

How can I do it?

Is there any git command can do this?

git filter-branch ?
git rebase ?
...

My code is hosted on github.com.

Indefensible answered 5/12, 2012 at 5:5 Comment(2)

1) Delete all .git files and .gitignore files in parent directory as well as subdirectory that might have separate .git/.gitignore files. In order to do so, run : rm -rf .*git command which will delete any file ending with .git. 2) Back out to parent directory and run git init which will initialize .git file by creating a new blank .git file without history 3) run git add . or git add * 4) run git commit --all -m "initial commit" 5) run git --set-upstream origin <git-url>` 6) run ` $ git push --mirror <git-repository-path` This process is going to re write history. – Edington 8/7, 2019 at 3:11

Followed the page and worked like a charm! docs.github.com/en/authentication/… – Lith 8/9, 2022 at 22:15

2037

Deleting the .git folder may cause problems in your git repository. If you want to delete all your commit history but keep the code in its current state, it is very safe to do it as in the following:

Checkout/create orphan branch (this branch won't show in git branch command):
```
git checkout --orphan latest_branch
```
Add all the files to the newly created branch:
```
git add -A
```
Commit the changes:
```
git commit -am "commit message"
```
Delete main (default) branch (this step is permanent):
```
git branch -D main
```
Rename the current branch to main:
```
git branch -m main
```
Finally, all changes are completed on your local repository, and force update your remote repository:
```
git push -f origin main
```

PS: This will not keep your old commit history around. Now you should only see your new commit in the history of your git repository.

Burl answered 23/9, 2014 at 16:43 Comment(31)

Can I do pull requests after this, with a forked repository? – Ferrocene 29/11, 2014 at 21:8

Awesome indeed. :) 0. Clone: git clone https://github.com/blahblah/blahblah :) – Perissodactyl 16/5, 2015 at 13:14

@Ferrocene No you cant, it will say: Nothing to compare, master and x branch has entirely different commit history. Pull request on Github become auto closed when you force push – Incognito 16/1, 2016 at 9:24

Does this delete local commit history on my machine or the history in github.com ? – Edo 22/1, 2016 at 23:7

@Edo It deletes all commit history: both locally and on the server (github.com) – Fawne 18/2, 2016 at 7:4

as good housekeeing, after those commands, a nice: git gc --aggressive --prune=all might be a good idea. Same for remove repository. – Reasoning 30/7, 2016 at 11:55

Sure seems like it ought to work, but when I try it (on SourceForge), I get this error message: remote: error: denying non-fast-forward refs/heads/master (you should pull first) – Escort 24/9, 2016 at 15:25

I have a repository 170MB and did this, now it is 180MB, how can I solve it? – Docile 20/2, 2017 at 15:19

Still history exists on local and bitbucket, maybe because project was forked from another project – Millionaire 28/3, 2017 at 8:41

Why add -A? When I do checkout --orphan, all the files are staged already; wouldn't add -A have the possibility of adding files that should stay untracked? – Flamsteed 24/10, 2017 at 11:0

this will delete commit from master branch only – Barbbarba 4/12, 2017 at 6:43

@Incognito the -f parameter forces the commit as the new master. That said, -f is a very powerful argument. 99.9% of the time its a bad idea to use, but if you really want to replace master and its commit history with the content and history of your branch, go for it. But realize if this isn't correctly thought out, it can go pear-shaped in a really bad (non recoverable) way! I'd recommend keeping a local copy of the original master in a separate machine as a safeguard. before you consider this – Regina 25/1, 2018 at 0:58

This is the only solution I have been able to find that actually works, i.e. delete all commit history, without the need to delete the repo and start again. NB. I was using bitbucket as my remote. – Pneumoencephalogram 15/11, 2018 at 0:17

What if I would like to effectively prune old commits? Say the first six months worth? – Knickerbocker 18/12, 2018 at 5:27

I can not perform the last step. I get this error message: You are not allowed to force push code to a protected branch on this project. – Flashover 12/3, 2019 at 14:3

I want to note that if a hacker got a hold of the url to the github page (github.com/<repo>/blob/<hash>). This method will not remove that url link. Only complete deletion and recreation of the repo will. – Albuminous 11/4, 2019 at 21:35

In addition to that $ git push --mirror [email protected]/new-location.git will push local repository to remote, and all it's branches to remote. If 'master' branch is not in protected/default branch mode this will rewrite repository in remote as you got in local. – Edington 8/7, 2019 at 2:59

@Begueradj It might be obvious but you need push rights to master for doing these by the way. – Action 7/8, 2019 at 7:43

Step 5. error: refname refs/heads/latest_branch not found fatal: Branch rename failed – Sekofski 24/11, 2019 at 11:11

You may want to do "git add ." instead of "git add -A" if you do not wish to add files ignored at .gitignore. – Lifework 6/1, 2020 at 15:2

This solution cannot delete all "contributions" on the graph(contribution activity per year) – Chongchoo 5/4, 2020 at 15:17

This sort of works, but if you have a private repo, it may not work, if you cloned your repo, using github.com/username/yourrepo.git, but will if you cloned it, using git clone [email protected]:username/yourrepo.git – Snowberry 18/4, 2020 at 20:3

This doesn’t remove the commits. It orphans them and, answering the question, cleans the history. But, the commits still exist, but nothing is pointing to them. Some plumbing commands or specific log commands will find them and you can even restore master. Orphan commits can be pruned with git-prune. I’ve never had to use it though, so I don’t know the exact command, nor do I know how to remove the orphan commits from the remote. – Toadeater 13/6, 2020 at 16:48

Make sure that you removed all TAGs too – Carlottacarlovingian 25/3, 2021 at 11:30

Aren't the commits still available in the reflog? – Mirandamire 13/4, 2021 at 7:40

Is is possible to do this online from gitlabs.com? – Eugenle 17/9, 2021 at 2:57

This is great! Unfortunately, it doesn't work on AUR: the server hooks are "denying non-fast-forward". – Volumetric 1/7, 2022 at 15:57

Thanks man. The most important thing here is adding files to the new branch instead of merging. – Omnirange 12/8, 2022 at 19:53

This did not work for me - the size of the .git directory stayed the same. – Budwig 23/9, 2022 at 4:29

I get error: src refspec main does not match any – Sewer 21/5, 2023 at 14:15

This is working fine with gitlab. Only additional thing to do before: Go to your repo settings and allow force push (Settings->Repository->Protected branches, and then check "allowed to force push") – Subsoil 9/12, 2023 at 11:27

168

If you are sure you want to remove all commit history, simply delete the .git directory in your project root (note that it's hidden). Then initialize a new repository in the same folder and link it to the GitHub repository:

git init
git remote add origin [email protected]:user/repo

now commit your current version of code

git add *
git commit -am 'message'

and finally force the update to GitHub:

git push -f origin master

However, I suggest backing up the history (the .git folder in the repository) before taking these steps!

Varix answered 5/12, 2012 at 5:14 Comment(14)

but if i just want to keep latest 10 commit ? – Indefensible 13/12, 2012 at 8:28

Can I do pull requests after this, with a forked repository? – Ferrocene 29/11, 2014 at 21:5

this works but it will keep the history from previous commits on the tree like @Desta Haileselassie Hagos said – Yordan 23/12, 2014 at 19:9

@JulioMarins: I've just tried this and pushed to GitHub. No history was kept - there is only one commit. – Stephens 28/8, 2015 at 20:58

@DanDascalescu the presence of only a single commit in the newly pushed master branch is very misleading - the history will still exist it just won't be accessible from that branch. If you have tags, for example, which point to older commits, these commits will be accessible. In fact, for anyone with a bit of git foo, I'm sure that after this git push, they will still be able to recover all history from the GitHub repository - and if you have other branches or tags, then they don't even need much git foo. – Dotard 3/5, 2016 at 9:1

Downvoted. I don't want to delete everything, just commits. I want to keep upstream settings etc. – Edelweiss 8/3, 2017 at 19:11

@TomášZato are you talking about the upstream settings in .git/config? If so, save your .git/config before, and restore it after. – Tetrachord 1/2, 2018 at 20:45

This did not work for me (and no other solution) – Flashover 12/3, 2019 at 15:3

Its not going in direction, that it will delete the complete local commit history, if you mage git init and then get the repo from the server? So, you get the history from the server. – Stella 29/12, 2019 at 11:55

if you have other branches you wish to keep? In this method, you would lose all the data. – Dihedron 30/9, 2021 at 15:33

extremely helpful thank you! – Inculpable 9/12, 2021 at 15:43

@RobertMuil how would history still exist if the instructions clearly say "delete the .git directory in your project root (note that it's hidden). Then initialize a new repository in the same folder and link it to the GitHub repository"? In another words this method creates a fresh git repository with the same code base that has no connection to the remote and no history attached (.git). – Hadji 18/3, 2023 at 5:2

This is one way to do if you want to get a fresh start but if you want to keep some commits then this is not the way to go. It is also overkill to create a new repository just because you want to clear branch history. – Hadji 18/3, 2023 at 5:6

@Hadji the history still exists in the remote(s). You only remove from your local, but when you push to the remote, it does not automatically remove past commits and expunge the history, it just removes the pointers from that branch. – Dotard 29/3, 2023 at 18:46

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