Make the current commit the only initial commit in a Git repository

Question

I  currently have a local Git repository  which I push to a Github repository   The local repository has  10 commits  and the Github repository is a synchronised duplicate of this   What I d like to do is remove ALL the version history from the local Git repository  so the current contents of the repository appear as the only commit  and therefore older versions of files within the repository are not stored     I d then like to push these changes to Github   I have investigated Git rebase  but this appears to be more suited to removing specific versions  Another potential solution is to delete the local repo  and create a new one - though this would probably create a lot of work   ETA  There are specific directories   files that are untracked - if possible I would like to maintain the untracking of these files

User · Answer

Variant of larsmans s proposed method   Save your untrackfiles list   git ls-files --others --exclude-standard  gt   tmp my untracked files   Save your git configuration   mv  git config  tmp    Then perform larsmans s first steps   rm -rf  git git init git add     Restore your config   mv  tmp config  git    Untrack you untracked files   cat  tmp my untracked files   xargs -0 git rm --cached   Then commit   git commit -m  Initial commit    And finally push to your repository   git push -u --force origin master

User · Answer

Below is a script adapted from  Zeelot  s answer  It should remove the history from all branches  not just the master branch   for BR in   git branch   do      git checkout  BR   git checkout --orphan   BR  temp   git commit -m  Initial commit    git branch -D  BR   git branch -m  BR done  git gc --aggressive --prune all   It worked for my purposes  I am not using submodules

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I solved a similar issue by just deleting the  git folder from my project and reintegrating with version control through IntelliJ   Note  The  git folder is hidden  You can view it in the terminal with ls -a   and then remove it using rm -rf  git

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Here s the brute-force approach  It also removes the configuration of the repository   Note  This does NOT work if the repository has submodules  If you are using submodules  you should use e g  interactive rebase  Step 1  remove all history  Make sure you have backup  this cannot be reverted   cat  git config    note  lt github-uri gt  rm -rf  git   Step 2  reconstruct the Git repo with only the current content  git init git add   git commit -m  Initial commit    Step 3  push to GitHub   git remote add origin  lt github-uri gt  git push -u --force origin master

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This deletes the history on the master branch  you might want to make a backup before running the commands   git branch tmp branch   echo  quot commit message quot    git commit-tree HEAD  tree   git checkout tmp branch git branch -D master git branch -m master git push -f --set-upstream origin master  This is based on the answer from  dan waterworth

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This is my favoured approach   git branch new branch name   echo  commit message    git commit-tree HEAD  tree     This will create a new branch with one commit that adds everything in HEAD  It doesn t alter anything else  so it s completely safe

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The method below is exactly reproducible  so there s no need to run clone again if both sides were consistent  just run the script on the other side too   git log -n1 --format  H  gt  git info grafts git filter-branch -f rm  git info grafts   If you then want to clean it up  try this script   http   sam nipl net b git-gc-all-ferocious  I wrote a script which  kills history  for each branch in the repository   http   sam nipl net b git-kill-history  see also  http   sam nipl net b confirm

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Here you go      bin bash     By Zibri  2019      Usage  gitclean username password giturl   gitclean            odir  PWD      if        -ne 3    then         echo  Usage  gitclean username password giturl           return 1      fi      temp   mktemp -d 2 gt  dev null  dev shm git XXX    mktemp -d 2 gt  dev null  tmp git XXX       cd   temp       url   echo   3   sed -e  s                           1         git clone  https    1  2  url   amp  amp             cd            for BR in    git branch tr       n  grep -v                do             echo working on branch  BR              git checkout  BR              git checkout --orphan   basename   temp  tr -d                 git add -A              git commit -m  Initial Commit   amp  amp                     git branch -D  BR                  git branch -m  BR                  git push -f origin  BR                  git gc --aggressive --prune all                        done            cd  odir      rm -rf   temp      Also hosted here  https   gist github com Zibri 76614988478a076bbe105545a16ee743

User · Answer

The only solution that works for me  and keeps submodules working  is  git checkout --orphan newBranch git add -A    Add all files and commit them git commit git branch -D master    Deletes the master branch git branch -m master    Rename the current branch to master git push -f origin master    Force push master branch to github git gc --aggressive --prune all       remove the old files   Deleting  git  always causes huge issues when I have submodules  Using git rebase --root would somehow cause conflicts for me  and take long since I had a lot of history

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You could use shallow clones  git   1 9    git clone --depth depth remote-url   Further reading  http   blogs atlassian com 2014 05 handle-big-repositories-git

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The other option  which could turn out to be a lot of work if you have a lot of commits  is an interactive rebase  assuming your git version is   1 7 12  git rebase --root -i  When presented with a list of commits in your editor    Change  pick  to  reword  for the first commit  Change  pick  to  fixup  every other commit   Save and close  Git will start rebasing    At the end you would have a new root commit that is a combination of all the ones that came after it   The advantage is that you don t have to delete your repository and if you have second thoughts you always have a fallback   If you really do want to nuke your history  reset master to this commit and delete all other branches

User · Answer

What I d like to do is remove ALL the version history from the local Git repository  so the current contents of the repository appear as the only commit  and therefore older versions of files within the repository are not stored      A more conceptual answer   git automatically garbage collects old commits if no tags branches refs point to them  So you simply have to remove all tags branches and create a new orphan commit  associated with any branch - by convention you would let the branch master point to that commit   The old  unreachable commits will then never again be seen by anyone unless they go digging with low-level git commands  If that is enough for you  I would just stop there and let the automatic GC do it s job whenever it wishes to  If you want to get rid of them right away  you can use git gc  possibly with --aggressive --prune all   For the remote git repository  there s no way for you to force that though  unless you have shell access to their file system

User · Answer

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 git checkout --orphan latest branch  Add all the files git add -A  Commit the changes git commit -am  quot commit message quot   Delete the branch git branch -D master  Rename the current branch to master git branch -m master  Finally  force update your repository git push -f origin master   PS  this will not keep your old commit history around

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To remove the last commit from git  you can simply run    git reset --hard HEAD        If you are removing multiple commits from the top  you can run    git reset --hard HEAD 2       to remove the last two commits  You   can increase the number to remove even more commits    More info here   Git tutoturial here provides help on how to purge repository      you want to remove the file from history and add it to the  gitignore   to ensure it is not accidentally re-committed  For our examples  we re   going to remove Rakefile from the GitHub gem repository    git clone https   github com defunkt github-gem git  cd github-gem  git filter-branch --force --index-filter      git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch Rakefile      --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all      Now that we ve erased the file from history  let s ensure that we   don t accidentally commit it again    echo  Rakefile   gt  gt   gitignore  git add  gitignore  git commit -m  Add Rakefile to  gitignore       If you re happy with the state of the repository  you need to   force-push the changes to overwrite the remote repository    git push origin master --force

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For that use Shallow Clone command  git clone --depth 1 URL - It will clones only the current HEAD of the repository

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Just delete the Github repo and create a new one  By far the fastest  easiest and safest approach  After all  what do you have to gain carrying out all those commands in the accepted solution when all you want is the master branch with a single commit

User · Answer

git filter-branch is the major-surgery tool   git filter-branch --parent-filter true --       --parent-filter gets the parents on stdin and should print the rewritten parents on stdout  unix true exits successfully and prints nothing  so  no parents       is Git shorthand for  the head commit but not any of its parents    Then delete all the other refs and push at leisure

[git] Make the current commit the only (initial) commit in a Git repository?

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