1GIT-GC(1) Git Manual GIT-GC(1)
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6 git-gc - Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize the local repository
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9 git gc [--aggressive] [--auto] [--quiet] [--prune=<date> | --no-prune]
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13 Runs a number of housekeeping tasks within the current repository, such
14 as compressing file revisions (to reduce disk space and increase
15 performance) and removing unreachable objects which may have been
16 created from prior invocations of git add.
17 Users are encouraged to run this task on a regular basis within each
19 repository to maintain good disk space utilization and good operating
20 performance.
21 Some git commands may automatically run git gc; see the --auto flag
23 below for details. If you know what you’re doing and all you want is to
24 disable this behavior permanently without further considerations, just
25 do:
26 $ git config --global gc.auto 0
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31 --aggressive
32 Usually git gc runs very quickly while providing good disk space
33 utilization and performance. This option will cause git gc to more
34 aggressively optimize the repository at the expense of taking much
35 more time. The effects of this optimization are persistent, so this
36 option only needs to be used occasionally; every few hundred
37 changesets or so.
38 --auto
40 With this option, git gc checks whether any housekeeping is
41 required; if not, it exits without performing any work. Some git
42 commands run git gc --auto after performing operations that could
43 create many loose objects.
44 Housekeeping is required if there are too many loose objects or too
46 many packs in the repository. If the number of loose objects
47 exceeds the value of the gc.auto configuration variable, then all
48 loose objects are combined into a single pack using git repack -d
49 -l. Setting the value of gc.auto to 0 disables automatic packing of
50 loose objects.
51 If the number of packs exceeds the value of gc.autopacklimit, then
53 existing packs (except those marked with a .keep file) are
54 consolidated into a single pack by using the -A option of git
55 repack. Setting gc.autopacklimit to 0 disables automatic
56 consolidation of packs.
57 --prune=<date>
59 Prune loose objects older than date (default is 2 weeks ago,
60 overridable by the config variable gc.pruneExpire). This option is
61 on by default.
62 --no-prune
64 Do not prune any loose objects.
65 --quiet
67 Suppress all progress reports.
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70 The optional configuration variable gc.reflogExpire can be set to
71 indicate how long historical entries within each branch’s reflog should
72 remain available in this repository. The setting is expressed as a
73 length of time, for example 90 days or 3 months. It defaults to 90
74 days.
75 The optional configuration variable gc.reflogExpireUnreachable can be
77 set to indicate how long historical reflog entries which are not part
78 of the current branch should remain available in this repository. These
79 types of entries are generally created as a result of using git commit
80 --amend or git rebase and are the commits prior to the amend or rebase
81 occurring. Since these changes are not part of the current project most
82 users will want to expire them sooner. This option defaults to 30 days.
83 The above two configuration variables can be given to a pattern. For
85 example, this sets non-default expiry values only to remote-tracking
86 branches:
87 [gc "refs/remotes/*"]
89 reflogExpire = never
90 reflogexpireUnreachable = 3 days
91 The optional configuration variable gc.rerereresolved indicates how
94 long records of conflicted merge you resolved earlier are kept. This
95 defaults to 60 days.
96 The optional configuration variable gc.rerereunresolved indicates how
98 long records of conflicted merge you have not resolved are kept. This
99 defaults to 15 days.
100 The optional configuration variable gc.packrefs determines if git gc
102 runs git pack-refs. This can be set to "notbare" to enable it within
103 all non-bare repos or it can be set to a boolean value. This defaults
104 to true.
105 The optional configuration variable gc.aggressiveWindow controls how
107 much time is spent optimizing the delta compression of the objects in
108 the repository when the --aggressive option is specified. The larger
109 the value, the more time is spent optimizing the delta compression. See
110 the documentation for the --window' option in git-repack(1) for more
111 details. This defaults to 250.
112 The optional configuration variable gc.pruneExpire controls how old the
114 unreferenced loose objects have to be before they are pruned. The
115 default is "2 weeks ago".
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118 git gc tries very hard to be safe about the garbage it collects. In
119 particular, it will keep not only objects referenced by your current
120 set of branches and tags, but also objects referenced by the index,
121 remote-tracking branches, refs saved by git filter-branch in
122 refs/original/, or reflogs (which may reference commits in branches
123 that were later amended or rewound).
124 If you are expecting some objects to be collected and they aren’t,
126 check all of those locations and decide whether it makes sense in your
127 case to remove those references.
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130 The git gc --auto command will run the pre-auto-gc hook. See
131 githooks(5) for more information.
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134 git-prune(1) git-reflog(1) git-repack(1) git-rerere(1)
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137 Part of the git(1) suite
138Git 1.8.3.1 11/19/2018 GIT-GC(1)