Repo still uses 8 GB of quota after force push to initial commit (empty repo)

Question

• My gitlab repo was ~8GO
• To rewrite it completely with size optimisation the idea was to reset the remote to the first commit and force push (git checkout <initial hash>; git push -f)
• Then rewrite the history locally reducing size with compression and LFC, then force push again.

The issue is that after doing git checkout <initial hash>; git push -f the quota used on the repo remotely is still 8GO (and so I am not able to push the history as 8+X > Quota).

What can I do to make gitlab reprocess the quota ? I triggered the warehousing but without any result.

The expected result is: quota 1ko (initial commit)

Answer 1

GitLab holds onto refs in hidden areas that are not advertised. Therefore, even force-pushing to advertised refs will not shrink the repository size. In order to actually reduce repository storage used, you'll need to follow the procedure for purging files from repository history.