git pack-redundant

Helps shrink an over-packed repo. Deprecated in newer Gits.

🎯 What & why

Find packfiles whose objects are all already present in other packs, so you can delete them and shrink the repo. Note: deprecated in modern Git in favour of incremental repack with proper bitmap support.

🧠 Mental model

Over time git push/fetch drop in many small packs that overlap. pack-redundant does set-difference math across .pack files and reports the ones whose contents are fully covered elsewhere. Modern Git prefers repack -d (and --geometric) which knows about bitmaps; reach for pack-redundant only on legacy repos.

🛠️ Synopsis

git pack-redundant --all [--alt-odb] [--verbose] [<pack-file>...]

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--all`	Consider every pack in the local object store (typical use).
`--alt-odb`	Also consult alternate object databases (shared object stores).
`--verbose`	Print per-pack progress and object counts on stderr.
`<pack-file>...`	Restrict the analysis to a specific list of pack files.
	⚠️ No `--dry-run`: output is just a list; deletion is your responsibility downstream.

💡 Use cases

Audit a legacy repo where git gc has not been run for a long time.
Reclaim disk on a mirror server with many overlapping fetched packs.
Diagnose why an object store is much larger on disk than expected.
Migrate off the old layout before switching to repack --geometric.

🧪 Examples

Find redundant packs

git pack-redundant --all

Verbose audit

git pack-redundant --all --verbose

Pipe results to removal

git pack-redundant --all | xargs -r rm -f

Modern replacement

git repack -ad --write-bitmap-index

🎓 Recommendations

On any reasonably current Git, prefer git repack -ad (or --geometric=<n>) plus git gc; let Git decide what is redundant.
If you must use pack-redundant, take a backup or run on a clone first; deleting the wrong pack corrupts the repo.

🪤 Common pitfalls

The command is deprecated and may be removed; do not script around it for long-term tooling.
Output names full paths to .pack files; you must remove the matching .idx (and .rev/.bitmap) files too, or Git will complain.
Without --alt-odb it ignores shared alternates and may flag packs whose objects only exist via the alternate.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.