Removing your GitHub commit history

If you mistakenly add a secret to your GitHub repo, like a password, API key or private key a delete and commit won't be good enough. Hackers will still be able to search your commit history.

This guide will show you how you can delete your github commit history to prevent any future damage.

First Method

Deleting the .git folder may cause problems in our git repository. If we want to delete all of our commits history, but keep the code in its current state, try this:

# Check out to a temporary branch:
git checkout --orphan TEMP_BRANCH

# Add all the files:
git add -A

# Commit the changes:
git commit -am "Initial commit"

# Delete the old branch:
git branch -D master

# Rename the temporary branch to master:
git branch -m master

# Finally, force update to our repository:
git push -f origin master

This will not keep our old commits history around. But sometimes this does not work if not, try the next method below.

Second Method

# Clone the project, e.g. `myproject` is my project repository:
git clone https://github/ankh2054/test-git

# Since all of the commits history are in the `.git` folder, we have to remove it:
cd test-git

# And delete the `.git` folder:
git rm -rf .git

# Now, re-initialize the repository:
git init
git remote add origin https://github/ankh2054/test-git
git remote -v

# Add all the files and commit the changes:
git add --all
git commit -am "Initial commit"

# Force push update to the master branch of our project repository:
git push -f origin master