[GitHub] - Free local hard disk space ?

[reexre]

Hi
I would like to ask a question about GitHub
(It's not the right place, but maybe Tanner or someone else can answer)

Problem:
Whenever you "update" github repositories, the amount of used space on your local hard disk increases.
If, like me, you update many files, and / or very heavy files, the amount of space used by the hard disk really grows a lot.
I do not care to keep track of the whole history of the repository,
The last version is enough for me. (especially regarding the "Site" https://miorsoft.github.io/Site/index.html)
I need to free space on the local hard disk.
And I suppose you can do this by removing all the history of the repository.
Here, how is it done?

I could try this way, but first I would like to have some more certainty.

-Create a local copy of the Repo.
-Remove all the Github data from this copy (".git" folder)
- Delete the old copy and rename the new one with the name of the Repo.
- Go to the browser and permanently delete the Repo.
- Upload to the Repo disk copy using the same name (of the deleted one)

Can someone give me useful and detailed information / links on how to proceed?

Thanks

[Schmidt]

There's a lot of different options (as soon as you'll use git on the commandline) -
though all of them "will delete some stuff" - so it's best to make a copy of your local repo first...

One relatively "clean" way to keep all the history on GitHub - and work only with a small(er) local repo,
would apparently be "shallow clones" - though the link below will address also other options, with regards
to "how to handle big git-repos": https://www.atlassian.com/blog/git/h...positories-git

I've so far only used the "default-options of my local GIT-GUI" when working against my vbWidgets-GitHub-Repo,
and thus have no experience (cannot assist) with any of these "special options", mentioned in the link...

Olaf

[reexre]

Thanks!

BTW I'm not interested even on maintain remote history.

I try the command suggested in the link

(Before I Renamed local folder to Repo_ORIG so I can restore it)

git clone --depth [depth] [remote-url]

Original folder 761 MB
Cloned 186 MB

Nice result.

But now, how can I push this new shrinked folder to remote Github Repository ?

(Tried with Github-Desktop but the (cloned) repository gives error: "We could not figure out the state of comparison graph" -"An error occured while trying to calculate the graph state of the repository")

[reexre]

I got a reply on Github community. so I show it here:

from mpboom

You could just do it like this (WARNING - this deletes your entire Git history, on ALL branches!):

cd <repository root>
rm -R ./.git
git init
git remote add origin <repo location on GH>
git push origin master —force

It deletes the Git repo locally, then creates a new one, then adds your repo on GH as a remote and force pushes it to GH, overwriting any changes there.

- Mark

GithubCommunity

[reexre]

So the complete command sequence should be this:
WARNING - this deletes your entire Git history, on ALL branches!

cd <repository root>
rm -R ./.git
git init
git remote add origin <repo location on GH>

git add --all :/
git commit -am 'message'

git push origin master —force

maybe there is a smarter mode using

git clone --depth [depth] [remote-url]

That can keep desired history depth.

... I'll investigate....