git-remove-history

#!/bin/bash

# see http://dound.com/2009/04/git-forever-remove-files-or-folders-from-history/

# Author: David Underhill (original)
# Author: Mike Slinn (runs from any directory)
# Script to permanently delete files/folders from your git repository.  To use
# it, cd to your repository's root and then run the script with a list of paths
# you want to delete, e.g., git-remove-history path1 path2

PWD1=`pwd`/
cd $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
PWD2=`pwd`/
PWD2_LEN=${#PWD2}
DPWD=${PWD1:$PWD2_LEN}

set -o errexit

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then exit 0; fi

# make sure we're at the root of git repo
if [ ! -d .git ]; then
    echo "Error: must run this script from the root of a git repository"
    exit 1
fi

# remove all paths passed as arguments from the history of the repo
files=$(for i in "$@"; do echo "'$DPWD$i' "; done)
#echo $files
git filter-branch --index-filter "git rm -rf --cached --ignore-unmatch \"${files}\"" HEAD

# remove the temporary history git-filter-branch otherwise leaves behind for a long time
rm -rf .git/refs/original/ && git reflog expire --all &&  git gc --aggressive --prune