remove git cruft
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My original inspiration for this post came from steven ostermiller's blog post that no longer exists from my last check in May, 2024.

Date: January 21, 2019

inspiration
───────────

My original inspiration for this post came from steven ostermiller’s blog post that no longer exists from my last check in May, 2024.

https://blog.ostermiller.org/removing-and-purging-files-from-git-history/

I was able to find it on the way back machine though.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240222195617/https://blog.ostermiller.org/removing-and-purging-files-from-git-history/

```
git log --all --pretty=format: --name-only --diff-filter=D | sed -r 's|[^/]+$||g' | sort -u
```

```
git filter-branch --tag-name-filter cat --index-filter 'git rm -r --cached --ignore-unmatch FILE_LIST' --prune-empty -f -- --all
```

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

```
git push origin --force --all
git push origin --force --tags
```

```
cd MY_LOCAL_GIT_REPO
git fetch origin
git rebase
git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git gc --aggressive --prune=now
```