Clean up unreachable or orphaned git objects with git prune

git.prune.md

Clean up unreachable or orphaned git objects with git prune

Unreachable objects are those that are not accessible by any refs. As an example, say we have made two commits, and reset them to different heads by calling git reset <commit_id> command. Though the git log command will not show the commit info, git still stores it internally as a dangling object.

Find the dangling commit

git fsck --lost-found

Expire all the entries that older than now

git reflog expire --expire=now --expire-unreachable=now --all

Check the change

git prune --dry-run --verbose --progress --expire=now

Running prune

git prune --verbose --progress --expire=now

Check for the dangling commits

git fsck --lost-found