To remove a large file from your repository, you must completely remove it from your local repository and from GitHub Enterprise.

Warning: These procedures will permanently remove files from the repository on your computer and . If the file is important, make a local backup copy in a directory outside the repository.

Removing a file added in the most recent unpushed commit

If the file was added with your most recent commit, and you have not pushed to , you can delete the file and amend the commit:

  1. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bashthe command line.

  2. Change the current working directory to your local repository.

  3. To remove the file, enter git rm --cached:

    git rm --cached giant_file
# Stage our giant file for removal, but leave it on disk

  4. Commit this change using --amend -CHEAD:

    git commit --amend -CHEAD
# Amend the previous commit with your change
# Simply making a new commit won't work, as you need
# to remove the file from the unpushed history as well

  5. Push your commits to :

    git push
# Push our rewritten, smaller commit

Removing a file added in an older commit

If the file was added in an earlier commit, you will need to remove it from your repository history. We suggest using a tool called The BFG:

bfg --strip-blobs-bigger-than 50M
# Git history will be cleaned - files in your latest commit will *not* be touched

For more information, The BFG's documentation contains full download and usage instructions.