Git Large File Storage
February 24th, 2020
- Link to Git Large File Storage on anchorfm
I finally have reached the stage of adding .mov
files to my Github
repositories, and was made aware of the need to use Git Large File Storage
. I
never thought I would have to download it (with Homebrew
of course), but the
other morning I finally had to take the plunge.
So what is Git Large File Storage
(LFS
)? It is an open source Git
extension for versioning large files. It replaces large
files such as audio samples
, videos
, datasets
, and graphics
with
text pointers
inside Git
, while storing the file contents on a
remote server like Github.com
or Github Enterprise
.
First I had to install the Git command line
extension. I did this with
Homebrew
by typing the following command in Terminal
followed by
pressing the enter/return
key:
brew install git-lfs
Then I executed the following command in Terminal
:
git lfs install
I only need to run this once per user account.
In each repository where I want to use Git LFS
, I select the file types
Iād
like Git LFS
to manage. Or I can directly edit my .gitattributes
file. I have to track .mov
files, so I did the following in the
repository I was working on:
git lfs track "*.mov"
Then I make sure to add my .gitattributes to the staging area, and then commit it.
If you have pre-existing files that you need to convert to
Git LFS
within your repository, such as on other branches or in
your prior commit history in your repository, you have to use
the git lfs migrate[1]
command, which has options designed to suit various
use cases.
After you have tracked the files you want to track and
committed the .gitattributes
file, then you can simply commit
your
files and push
them to origin master
. And that is it!
I will be embedding this episode of Plugging in The Holes along with a transcript in the form of a post on interglobalmedianetwork.com for your hearing and reading pleasure. I will be including the related resource links mentioned in the podcast of course. Always do. Bye for now!
Related Resources
Created by Maria D. Campbell who lives and works in New York City building useful things. You should follow her on Twitter. She also has a developer blog mariadcampbell.com you may want to check out!