1GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1) General Commands Manual GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1)
2
6 git-lfs-prune - Delete old LFS files from local storage
7
9 git lfs prune options
10
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 ○ all existing stashes
20 ○ a ´recent branch´; see RECENT FILES
22 ○ a ´recent commit´ on the current branch or recent branches; see RE‐
24 CENT FILES
25 ○ a commit which has not been pushed; see UNPUSHED LFS FILES
27 ○ any other worktree checkouts; see git-worktree(1)
29 In general terms, prune will delete files you´re not currently using
33 and which are not ´recent´, so long as they´ve been pushed i.e. the lo‐
34 cal copy is not the only one.
35 The reflog is not considered, only commits. Therefore LFS objects that
37 are only referenced by orphaned commits are always deleted.
38 Note: you should not run git lfs prune if you have different reposito‐
40 ries sharing the same custom storage directory; see git-lfs-config(1)
41 for more details about lfs.storage option.
42
44 ○ --dry-run -d Don´t actually delete anything, just report on what
45 would have been done
46 ○ --verify-remote -c Contact the remote and check that copies of the
48 files we would delete definitely exist before deleting. See VERIFY
49 REMOTE.
50 ○ --no-verify-remote Disables remote verification if lfs.pruneveri‐
52 fyremotealways was enabled in settings. See VERIFY REMOTE.
53 ○ --verbose -v Report the full detail of what is/would be deleted.
55
59 Prune won´t delete LFS files referenced by ´recent´ commits, in case
60 you want to use them again without having to download. The definition
61 of ´recent´ is derived from the one used by git-lfs-fetch(1) to down‐
62 load recent objects with the --recent option, with an offset of a num‐
63 ber of days (default 3) to ensure that we always keep files you down‐
64 load for a few days.
65 Here are the git-config(1) settings that control this behaviour:
67 ○ lfs.pruneoffsetdays
69 The number of extra days added to the fetch recent settings when
70 using them to decide when to prune. So for a reference to be con‐
71 sidered old enough to prune, it has to be this many days older than
72 the oldest reference that would be downloaded via git lfs fetch
73 --recent. Only used if the relevant fetch recent ´days´ setting is
74 non-zero. Default 3 days.
75 ○ lfs.fetchrecentrefsdays
77 lfs.fetchrecentremoterefs
78 lfs.fetchrecentcommitsdays
79 These have the same meaning as git-lfs-fetch(1) with the --recent
80 option, they are used as a base for the offset above. Anything
81 which falls outside of this offsetted window is considered old
82 enough to prune. If a day value is zero, that condition is not used
83 at all to retain objects and they will be pruned.
84
88 When the only copy of an LFS file is local, and it is still reachable
89 from any reference, that file can never be pruned, regardless of how
90 old it is.
91 To determine whether an LFS file has been pushed, we check the differ‐
93 ence between local refs and remote refs; where the local ref is ahead,
94 any LFS files referenced in those commits is unpushed and will not be
95 deleted. This works because the LFS pre-push hook always ensures that
96 LFS files are pushed before the remote branch is updated.
97 See DEFAULT REMOTE, for which remote is considered ´pushed´ for pruning
99 purposes.
100
102 The --verify-remote option calls the remote to ensure that any LFS
103 files to be deleted have copies on the remote before actually deleting
104 them.
105 Usually the check performed by UNPUSHED LFS FILES is enough to deter‐
107 mine that files have been pushed, but if you want to be extra sure at
108 the expense of extra overhead you can make prune actually call the re‐
109 mote API and verify the presence of the files you´re about to delete
110 locally. See DEFAULT REMOTE for which remote is checked.
111 You can make this behaviour the default by setting lfs.pruneverifyre‐
113 motealways to true.
114 In addition to the overhead of calling the remote, using this option
116 also requires prune to distinguish between totally unreachable files
117 (e.g. those that were added to the index but never committed, or refer‐
118 enced only by orphaned commits), and files which are still referenced,
119 but by commits which are prunable. This makes the prune process take
120 longer.
121
123 When identifying UNPUSHED LFS FILES and performing VERIFY REMOTE, a
124 single remote, ´origin´, is normally used as the reference. This one
125 remote is considered canonical; even if you use multiple remotes, you
126 probably want to retain your local copies until they´ve made it to that
127 remote. ´origin´ is used by default because that will usually be a mas‐
128 ter central repo, or your fork of it - in both cases that´s a valid re‐
129 mote backup of your work. If origin doesn´t exist then by default noth‐
130 ing will be pruned because everything is treated as ´unpushed´.
131 You can alter the remote via git config: lfs.pruneremotetocheck. Set
133 this to a different remote name to check that one instead of ´origin´.
134
136 git-lfs-fetch(1)
137 Part of the git-lfs(1) suite.
139 March 2021 GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1)