how to stop pushing deleted files to remote repo?

Question

I committed some files and tried to push them to the remote repository. However, I found a large video file in the list and terminated the pushing. And then I tried to delete the file from the list and pushed again.

$git commit -m "comments" -a
$git push origin my_branch
... # I found mp4 file here and terminated push
$git rm --cached path/to/mp4
$git commit -m "comments" -a
$git push origin my_branch

Problem
git still tried to push the mp4 file to repo.

Question How do I avoid the deleted file pushing to remote repo?

PS
I also tried git rm path/to/mp4, the file has removed from my directory but git still tried to push the file to repo

Do a git checkout remove the file using git rm and again push the file. This will delete the file for sure. — Arihant Godha, May 19 '14 at 05:53

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered May 19 '14 at 05:13

11

From those commands it looks like the video file is still in the commit history.

Assuming you have made no other commits try the following. If you have just tweak them a bit.

Try reverting to the previous commit

git reset --soft HEAD~1

then do git status and see if you see the file

if you do. then remove it and recommit with

git commit -c ORIG_HEAD

answered May 19 '14 at 05:13

Bachmann

748
6
12

thanks, before I try the solution, may I know the solution will roll back my changes? – user001 May 19 '14 at 05:23
Reset --soft should not roll anything back until you commit. It returns you to the state before the commit. All The changes in that commit will show up in the staging area. – Bachmann May 19 '14 at 06:04
If you're unsure just init a git repo in another folder and experiment. Or make a new branch and try the command there. Even if something does go wrong, the reflog is your friend – Bachmann May 19 '14 at 06:04

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

If the history is larger than just one commit, and the mp4 large file has been versioned in older commits, you can consider cleaning up the history of your repo with:

git filter-branch (as in this answer),

or with BFG.

bfg --strip-blobs-bigger-than 1M  my-repo.git

Follow that cleanup with a git gc --aggressive --prune=now (as explained here)

To "roll back", simply try those operations on a local clone of your current local repo (so a second local repo, clone of the first). If the end result isn't good, you can resume in the first (untouched) repo.

how to stop pushing deleted files to remote repo?

2 Answers2