Removing git lfs from (any) repository

remove-git-lfs.md

So, it has been an interesting journey, but time to remove git-lfs. Here follows a summary of the approach I used to safely remove git-lfs,

• commit & push everything
• create a branch, something like fix/remove-lfs
• remove hooks git lfs uninstall
• remove lfs stuff from .gitattributes (open file, delete content - don't delete the file!)
• list all lfs files, git lfs ls-files
• run git rm --cached for each file
  • if your list is big, copy the contents into a file.txt
  • make sure you remove the number and asterik on each line, you only want the paths to the files
  • while read line; do git rm --cached "$line"; done < files.txt
• run git add for each file
  • if you have a file.txt
  • while read line; do git add "$line"; done < files.txt
• run a git status and make sure all the files were added properly
• commit everything

git add .gitattributes
git commit -m "unlfs"
git push

• check that no lfs files left with git lfs ls-files
• remove any lfs, rm -rf .git/lfs

Once your branch (fix/remove-lfs) is merged into develop, your team doesn't need to do anything other than simply pulling and checking out the new state of the world, their repository will work as-expected without git lfs installed. If git lfs is still installed, simply let them uninstall it: git lfs uninstall

Credits: Fedor, Taylor, Chase, Simon