bionic (1) git-lfs-prune.1.gz

NAME

       git-lfs-prune - Delete old LFS files from local storage

SYNOPSIS

       git lfs prune options

DESCRIPTION

       Deletes  local  copies  of  LFS  files  which  are  old,  thus  freeing  up disk space. Prune operates by
       enumerating all the locally stored objects, and then deleting any which are not referenced  by  at  least
       ONE of the following:

       •   the current checkout

       •   a ´recent branch´; see RECENT FILES

       •   a ´recent commit´ on the current branch or recent branches; see RECENT FILES

       •   a commit which has not been pushed; see UNPUSHED LFS FILES

       •   any other worktree checkouts; see git-worktree(1)

       In  general terms, prune will delete files you´re not currently using and which are not ´recent´, so long
       as they´ve been pushed i.e. the local copy is not the only one.

       The reflog is not considered, only commits. Therefore LFS objects that are only  referenced  by  orphaned
       commits are always deleted.

       Note: you should not run git lfs prune if you have different repositories sharing the same custom storage
       directory; see git-lfs-config(1) for more details about lfs.storage option.

OPTIONS

       •   --dry-run -d Don´t actually delete anything, just report on what would have been done

       •   --verify-remote -c Contact the remote and check that copies of the files we would  delete  definitely
           exist before deleting. See VERIFY REMOTE.

       •   --no-verify-remote  Disables  remote  verification  if  lfs.pruneverifyremotealways  was  enabled  in
           settings. See VERIFY REMOTE.

       •   --verbose -v Report the full detail of what is/would be deleted.

RECENT FILES

       Prune won´t delete LFS files referenced by ´recent´ commits, in case you want to use them  again  without
       having  to  download.  The  definition  of  ´recent´  is derived from the one used by git-lfs-fetch(1) to
       download recent objects with the --recent option, with an offset of a  number  of  days  (default  3)  to
       ensure that we always keep files you download for a few days.

       Here are the git-config(1) settings that control this behaviour:

       •   lfs.pruneoffsetdays
           The  number of extra days added to the fetch recent settings when using them to decide when to prune.
           So for a reference to be considered old enough to prune, it has to be this many days older  than  the
           oldest reference that would be downloaded via git lfs fetch --recent. Only used if the relevant fetch
           recent ´days´ setting is non-zero. Default 3 days.

       •   lfs.fetchrecentrefsdays
           lfs.fetchrecentremoterefs
           lfs.fetchrecentcommitsdays
           These have the same meaning as git-lfs-fetch(1) with the --recent option, they are used as a base for
           the  offset  above. Anything which falls outside of this offsetted window is considered old enough to
           prune. If a day value is zero, that condition is not used at all to retain objects and they  will  be
           pruned.

UNPUSHED LFS FILES

       When  the  only copy of an LFS file is local, and it is still reachable from any reference, that file can
       never be pruned, regardless of how old it is.

       To determine whether an LFS file has been pushed, we check the difference between local refs  and  remote
       refs; where the local ref is ahead, any LFS files referenced in those commits is unpushed and will not be
       deleted. This works because the LFS pre-push hook always ensures that LFS files  are  pushed  before  the
       remote branch is updated.

       See DEFAULT REMOTE, for which remote is considered ´pushed´ for pruning purposes.

VERIFY REMOTE

       The --verify-remote option calls the remote to ensure that any LFS files to be deleted have copies on the
       remote before actually deleting them.

       Usually the check performed by UNPUSHED LFS FILES is enough to determine that files have been pushed, but
       if you want to be extra sure at the expense of extra overhead you can make prune actually call the remote
       API and verify the presence of the files you´re about to delete locally. See  DEFAULT  REMOTE  for  which
       remote is checked.

       You can make this behaviour the default by setting lfs.pruneverifyremotealways to true.

       In  addition  to the overhead of calling the remote, using this option also requires prune to distinguish
       between totally unreachable files (e.g. those that were added  to  the  index  but  never  committed,  or
       referenced  only  by  orphaned  commits),  and files which are still referenced, but by commits which are
       prunable. This makes the prune process take longer.

DEFAULT REMOTE

       When identifying UNPUSHED LFS FILES and performing VERIFY REMOTE, a single remote, ´origin´, is  normally
       used  as  the  reference.  This one remote is considered canonical; even if you use multiple remotes, you
       probably want to retain your local copies until they´ve made it to  that  remote.  ´origin´  is  used  by
       default  because  that will usually be a master central repo, or your fork of it - in both cases that´s a
       valid remote backup of your work. If origin doesn´t exist then by default nothing will be pruned  because
       everything is treated as ´unpushed´.

       You  can  alter the remote via git config: lfs.pruneremotetocheck. Set this to a different remote name to
       check that one instead of ´origin´.

SEE ALSO

       git-lfs-fetch(1)

       Part of the git-lfs(1) suite.

                                                  November 2017                                 GIT-LFS-PRUNE(1)