1GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1) General Commands Manual 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 ○ 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.
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44 ○ --dry-run -d Don´t actually delete anything, just report on what
45 would have been done
46 ○ --force -f Prune all objects except unpushed objects, including ob‐
48 jects required for currently checked out refs. Implies --recent.
49 ○ --recent Prune even objects that would normally be preserved by the
51 configuration options specified below in RECENT FILES.
52 ○ --verify-remote -c Contact the remote and check that copies of the
54 files we would delete definitely exist before deleting. See VERIFY
55 REMOTE.
56 ○ --no-verify-remote Disables remote verification if lfs.pruneveri‐
58 fyremotealways was enabled in settings. See VERIFY REMOTE.
59 ○ --verbose -v Report the full detail of what is/would be deleted.
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65 Prune won´t delete LFS files referenced by ´recent´ commits, in case
66 you want to use them again without having to download. The definition
67 of ´recent´ is derived from the one used by git-lfs-fetch(1) to down‐
68 load recent objects with the --recent option, with an offset of a num‐
69 ber of days (default 3) to ensure that we always keep files you down‐
70 load for a few days.
71 Here are the git-config(1) settings that control this behaviour:
73 ○ lfs.pruneoffsetdays
75 The number of extra days added to the fetch recent settings when
76 using them to decide when to prune. So for a reference to be con‐
77 sidered old enough to prune, it has to be this many days older than
78 the oldest reference that would be downloaded via git lfs fetch
79 --recent. Only used if the relevant fetch recent ´days´ setting is
80 non-zero. Default 3 days.
81 ○ lfs.fetchrecentrefsdays
83 lfs.fetchrecentremoterefs
84 lfs.fetchrecentcommitsdays
85 These have the same meaning as git-lfs-fetch(1) with the --recent
86 option, they are used as a base for the offset above. Anything
87 which falls outside of this offsetted window is considered old
88 enough to prune. If a day value is zero, that condition is not used
89 at all to retain objects and they will be pruned.
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94 When the only copy of an LFS file is local, and it is still reachable
95 from any reference, that file can never be pruned, regardless of how
96 old it is.
97 To determine whether an LFS file has been pushed, we check the differ‐
99 ence between local refs and remote refs; where the local ref is ahead,
100 any LFS files referenced in those commits is unpushed and will not be
101 deleted. This works because the LFS pre-push hook always ensures that
102 LFS files are pushed before the remote branch is updated.
103 See DEFAULT REMOTE, for which remote is considered ´pushed´ for pruning
105 purposes.
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108 The --verify-remote option calls the remote to ensure that any LFS
109 files to be deleted have copies on the remote before actually deleting
110 them.
111 Usually the check performed by UNPUSHED LFS FILES is enough to deter‐
113 mine that files have been pushed, but if you want to be extra sure at
114 the expense of extra overhead you can make prune actually call the re‐
115 mote API and verify the presence of the files you´re about to delete
116 locally. See DEFAULT REMOTE for which remote is checked.
117 You can make this behaviour the default by setting lfs.pruneverifyre‐
119 motealways to true.
120 In addition to the overhead of calling the remote, using this option
122 also requires prune to distinguish between totally unreachable files
123 (e.g. those that were added to the index but never committed, or refer‐
124 enced only by orphaned commits), and files which are still referenced,
125 but by commits which are prunable. This makes the prune process take
126 longer.
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129 When identifying UNPUSHED LFS FILES and performing VERIFY REMOTE, a
130 single remote, ´origin´, is normally used as the reference. This one
131 remote is considered canonical; even if you use multiple remotes, you
132 probably want to retain your local copies until they´ve made it to that
133 remote. ´origin´ is used by default because that will usually be a main
134 central repo, or your fork of it - in both cases that´s a valid remote
135 backup of your work. If origin doesn´t exist then by default nothing
136 will be pruned because everything is treated as ´unpushed´.
137 You can alter the remote via git config: lfs.pruneremotetocheck. Set
139 this to a different remote name to check that one instead of ´origin´.
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142 git-lfs-fetch(1)
143 Part of the git-lfs(1) suite.
145 October 2021 GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1)