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Mercurial recently added an official Large Files extension. It solves the problems associated with storing a file that is essentially unversionable, video game assets are a common example of this).

Does Git have a similar feature? (either currently or in the works?)

Vadim Kotov
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deft_code
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  • I imagine in git you would use sub-modules for this; the large files would be isolated in a sub-module that is only referenced over the network. Never had to deal with this situation myself though. – antlersoft Feb 16 '12 at 20:45
  • I thought [git-annex](http://git-annex.branchable.com/not/) was the equivalent, but according to it's FAQ, that isn't true. – Martin Geisler Feb 16 '12 at 20:49
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    It would be nice if the FAQ clarified how it was different! The FAQ do mention [git-media](https://github.com/schacon/git-media) as something approaching the same problem from a similar direction, and git-media describes itself as a way to "use Git with large media files without storing the media in Git itself". – Cascabel Feb 16 '12 at 21:00

2 Answers2

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git-annex was designed to handle large files.

Also see: Managing large binary files with git and Git analog to Hg's Bigfiles Extension?

Community
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Richard Hansen
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Git does not have a similar feature. 'largefiles' is now a part of Mercurial. Git-Annex and other solutions are not part of the official Git project.

Not being part of the official project or even the officially recommended solution for handling large binary files could be an issue. Future Git changes could break these external solutions or Git may itself provide a large files implementation.

Non-distributed SCM, like Subversion, are still better at this, imho. Does Git have a plan in place to fill in this hole?

Josef.B
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  • Future git changes would have to fundamentally alter the structure that's allowed git to succeed so dramatically, so I think [annex](http://git-annex.branchable.com/not/) and [media](https://github.com/schacon/git-media) are good for a very long time. Git's a repository editor at its core, the vcs is an editor-macro package (fairly sophisticated ones) built on it. – jthill Jun 01 '14 at 14:20