CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Luke Davis
Luke Davis

Reputation: 2666

Force git to automatically delete previous versions of binary files -- is this possible?

I am trying to use Github for some academic work, as a replacement for heavy-weight cloud storage systems like Dropbox and Google Drive. This means I'd like to save PDF figures and manuscripts to my git repo, so that collaborators can clone/pull this stuff from my private repo (I have code and .tex files in the same repo, so for that reason, I feel that git is still appropriate). Unfortunately, the size of the .git folder can quickly get massive since git is saving these old, unwanted versions of scientific figures (we generate a lot before settling on something publication-worthy).

Would it be possible to have git automatically remove the version history of all binary (.pdf, .png, etc.) files automatically on each commit? That is, for certain filetypes, git will only keep track of the files present during the latest commit.

Alternatively, is there a simple command I can use to periodically wipe out the binary file version history in git, so I can run it whenever .git starts to get massive?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 153

Answers (1)

Code-Apprentice
Code-Apprentice

Reputation: 83557

Git is not intended as a backup service. It is built as a version control system. This means that any file that is tracked by git must have a history of changes. All changes are stored within the repository in .git.

You should not use Git as a replacement for Dropbox or Google Drive as these serve two entirely different purposes.

If you truly need version control for large files, then you should look at git-lfs. Once again, this is a version control system, not a file storage system. It will still store all information about all versions of the file. If you just need file storage, then you should use existing cloud storage systems instead.

Upvotes: 2

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