Git Large File Storage

Git LFS is a command line extension and specification for managing large files with Git.

The client is written in Go, with pre-compiled binaries available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD. Check out the website for an overview of features.

Getting Started

Installing

On Linux

Debian and RPM packages are available from packagecloud, see the Linux installation instructions.

On macOS

Homebrew bottles are distributed and can be installed via brew install git-lfs.

On Windows

Git LFS is included in the distribution of Git for Windows. Alternatively, you can install a recent version of Git LFS from the Chocolatey package manager.

From binary

Binary packages are available for Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD. The binary packages include a script which will:

Install Git LFS binaries onto the system $PATH. On Windows in particular, you may need to restart your command shell so any change to $PATH will take effect and Git can locate the Git LFS binary.
Run git lfs install to perform required global configuration changes.

$ ./install.sh

Note that Debian and RPM packages are built for multiple Linux distributions and versions for both amd64 and i386. For arm64, only Debian packages are built and only for recent versions due to the cost of building in emulation.

From source

Ensure you have the latest version of Go, GNU make, and a standard Unix-compatible build environment installed.
On Windows, install goversioninfo with go install github.com/josephspurrier/goversioninfo/cmd/goversioninfo@latest.
Run make.
Place the git-lfs binary, which can be found in bin, on your system’s executable $PATH or equivalent.
Git LFS requires global configuration changes once per-machine. This can be done by running: git lfs install

Verifying releases

Releases are signed with the OpenPGP key of one of the core team members. To get these keys, you can run the following command, which will print them to standard output:

$ curl -L https://api.github.com/repos/git-lfs/git-lfs/tarball/core-gpg-keys | tar -Ozxf -

Once you have the keys, you can download the sha256sums.asc file and verify the file you want like so:

$ gpg -d sha256sums.asc | grep git-lfs-linux-amd64-v2.10.0.tar.gz | shasum -a 256 -c

For the convenience of distributors, we also provide a wider variety of signed hashes in the hashes.asc file. Those hashes are in the tagged BSD format, but can be verified with Perl's shasum or the GNU hash utilities, just like the ones in sha256sums.asc.

Example Usage

To begin using Git LFS within a Git repository that is not already configured for Git LFS, you can indicate which files you would like Git LFS to manage. This can be done by running the following from within a Git repository:

$ git lfs track "*.psd"

(Where *.psd is the pattern of filenames that you wish to track. You can read more about this pattern syntax here).

Note: the quotation marks surrounding the pattern are important to prevent the glob pattern from being expanded by the shell.

After any invocation of git-lfs-track(1) or git-lfs-untrack(1), you must commit changes to your .gitattributes file. This can be done by running:

$ git add .gitattributes
$ git commit -m "track *.psd files using Git LFS"

You can now interact with your Git repository as usual, and Git LFS will take care of managing your large files. For example, changing a file named my.psd (tracked above via *.psd):

$ git add my.psd
$ git commit -m "add psd"

Tip: if you have large files already in your repository's history, git lfs track will not track them retroactively. To migrate existing large files in your history to use Git LFS, use git lfs migrate. For example:
$ git lfs migrate import --include="*.psd" --everything
Note that this will rewrite history and change all of the Git object IDs in your repository, just like the export version of this command.

For more information, read git-lfs-migrate(1).

You can confirm that Git LFS is managing your PSD file:

$ git lfs ls-files
3c2f7aedfb * my.psd

Once you've made your commits, push your files to the Git remote:

$ git push origin main
Uploading LFS objects: 100% (1/1), 810 B, 1.2 KB/s
# ...
To https://github.com/git-lfs/git-lfs-test
   67fcf6a..47b2002  main -> main

Note: Git LFS requires at least Git 1.8.2 on Linux or 1.8.5 on macOS.

Uninstalling

If you've decided that Git LFS isn't right for you, you can convert your repository back to a plain Git repository with git lfs migrate as well. For example:

$ git lfs migrate export --include="*.psd" --everything

Note that this will rewrite history and change all of the Git object IDs in your repository, just like the import version of this command.

If there's some reason that things aren't working out for you, please let us know in an issue, and we'll definitely try to help or get it fixed.

Limitations

Git LFS maintains a list of currently known limitations, which you can find and edit here.

Git LFS source code utilizes Go modules in its build system, and therefore this project contains a go.mod file with a defined Go module path. However, we do not maintain a stable Go language API or ABI, as Git LFS is intended to be used solely as a compiled binary utility. Please do not import the git-lfs module into other Go code and do not rely on it as a source code dependency.

Need Help?

You can get help on specific commands directly:

$ git lfs help <subcommand>

The official documentation has command references and specifications for the tool. There's also a FAQ shipped with Git LFS which answers some common questions.

If you have a question on how to use Git LFS, aren't sure about something, or are looking for input from others on tips about best practices or use cases, feel free to start a discussion.

You can always open an issue, and one of the Core Team members will respond to you. Please be sure to include:

The output of git lfs env, which displays helpful information about your Git repository useful in debugging.
Any failed commands re-run with GIT_TRACE=1 in the environment, which displays additional information pertaining to why a command crashed.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for info on working on Git LFS and sending patches. Related projects are listed on the Implementations wiki page.

See also SECURITY.md for info on how to submit reports of security vulnerabilities.

Core Team

These are the humans that form the Git LFS core team, which runs the project.

In alphabetical order:

@bk2204	@chrisd8088	@larsxschneider

PGP 0223B187	PGP 088335A9	PGP A5795889

Alumni

These are the humans that have in the past formed the Git LFS core team, or have otherwise contributed a significant amount to the project. Git LFS would not be possible without them.