1GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1) GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1)
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6 git-lfs-prune - Delete old LFS files from local storage
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9 git lfs prune options
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12 Deletes local copies of LFS files which are old, thus freeing up disk
13 space. Prune operates by enumerating all the locally stored objects,
14 and then deleting any which are not referenced by at least ONE of the
15 following:
16 · the current checkout
18 · a ´recent branch´; see RECENT FILES
20 · a ´recent commit´ on the current branch or recent branches; see
22 RECENT FILES
23 · a commit which has not been pushed; see UNPUSHED LFS FILES
25 · any other worktree checkouts; see git-worktree(1)
27 In general terms, prune will delete files you´re not currently using
31 and which are not ´recent´, so long as they´ve been pushed i.e. the
32 local copy is not the only one.
33 The reflog is not considered, only commits. Therefore LFS objects that
35 are only referenced by orphaned commits are always deleted.
36 Note: you should not run git lfs prune if you have different reposito‐
38 ries sharing the same custom storage directory; see git-lfs-config(1)
39 for more details about lfs.storage option.
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42 · --dry-run -d Don´t actually delete anything, just report on what
43 would have been done
44 · --verify-remote -c Contact the remote and check that copies of the
46 files we would delete definitely exist before deleting. See VERIFY
47 REMOTE.
48 · --no-verify-remote Disables remote verification if lfs.pruneveri‐
50 fyremotealways was enabled in settings. See VERIFY REMOTE.
51 · --verbose -v Report the full detail of what is/would be deleted.
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57 Prune won´t delete LFS files referenced by ´recent´ commits, in case
58 you want to use them again without having to download. The definition
59 of ´recent´ is derived from the one used by git-lfs-fetch(1) to down‐
60 load recent objects with the --recent option, with an offset of a num‐
61 ber of days (default 3) to ensure that we always keep files you down‐
62 load for a few days.
63 Here are the git-config(1) settings that control this behaviour:
65 · lfs.pruneoffsetdays
67 The number of extra days added to the fetch recent settings when
68 using them to decide when to prune. So for a reference to be con‐
69 sidered old enough to prune, it has to be this many days older than
70 the oldest reference that would be downloaded via git lfs fetch
71 --recent. Only used if the relevant fetch recent ´days´ setting is
72 non-zero. Default 3 days.
73 · lfs.fetchrecentrefsdays
75 lfs.fetchrecentremoterefs
76 lfs.fetchrecentcommitsdays
77 These have the same meaning as git-lfs-fetch(1) with the --recent
78 option, they are used as a base for the offset above. Anything
79 which falls outside of this offsetted window is considered old
80 enough to prune. If a day value is zero, that condition is not used
81 at all to retain objects and they will be pruned.
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86 When the only copy of an LFS file is local, and it is still reachable
87 from any reference, that file can never be pruned, regardless of how
88 old it is.
89 To determine whether an LFS file has been pushed, we check the differ‐
91 ence between local refs and remote refs; where the local ref is ahead,
92 any LFS files referenced in those commits is unpushed and will not be
93 deleted. This works because the LFS pre-push hook always ensures that
94 LFS files are pushed before the remote branch is updated.
95 See DEFAULT REMOTE, for which remote is considered ´pushed´ for pruning
97 purposes.
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100 The --verify-remote option calls the remote to ensure that any LFS
101 files to be deleted have copies on the remote before actually deleting
102 them.
103 Usually the check performed by UNPUSHED LFS FILES is enough to deter‐
105 mine that files have been pushed, but if you want to be extra sure at
106 the expense of extra overhead you can make prune actually call the
107 remote API and verify the presence of the files you´re about to delete
108 locally. See DEFAULT REMOTE for which remote is checked.
109 You can make this behaviour the default by setting lfs.pruneverifyre‐
111 motealways to true.
112 In addition to the overhead of calling the remote, using this option
114 also requires prune to distinguish between totally unreachable files
115 (e.g. those that were added to the index but never committed, or refer‐
116 enced only by orphaned commits), and files which are still referenced,
117 but by commits which are prunable. This makes the prune process take
118 longer.
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121 When identifying UNPUSHED LFS FILES and performing VERIFY REMOTE, a
122 single remote, ´origin´, is normally used as the reference. This one
123 remote is considered canonical; even if you use multiple remotes, you
124 probably want to retain your local copies until they´ve made it to that
125 remote. ´origin´ is used by default because that will usually be a mas‐
126 ter central repo, or your fork of it - in both cases that´s a valid
127 remote backup of your work. If origin doesn´t exist then by default
128 nothing will be pruned because everything is treated as ´unpushed´.
129 You can alter the remote via git config: lfs.pruneremotetocheck. Set
131 this to a different remote name to check that one instead of ´origin´.
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134 git-lfs-fetch(1)
135 Part of the git-lfs(1) suite.
137 January 2020 GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1)