git-filter-branch

git filter-branch [options] [--] [rev-list]

git filter-branch is a powerful but deprecated tool for rewriting Git history by applying filter commands to every commit in a branch. It walks through the entire commit history, allowing modifications to trees, commit messages, author information, or other metadata.The subdirectory-filter is particularly useful for extracting a subdirectory into a new repository with its history intact. Performance is notably poor on large repositories because it must check out every commit's tree. This limitation led to the development of git-filter-repo as the official replacement.

--env-filter cmd

Rewrite author/committer environment variables (name, email, date).

Rewrite tree and contents; checks out each commit, so slow on large repos.

Rewrite the index without checking out the tree; much faster than --tree-filter. Commonly used with git rm --cached.

Rewrite a commit's parent list.

Rewrite commit messages.

Replace the commit-creation step entirely.

Rewrite tag names pointing at rewritten commits.

Only rewrite history touching dir, and make it the new project root.

Remove commits that become empty after filtering.

Namespace for backup refs (default refs/original).

Temporary directory to use (e.g. tmpfs, for I/O speed).

Force the operation, overwriting an existing backup namespace.

Officially deprecated in favor of git-filter-repo. Slow on large repositories. Changes history, invalidating commit hashes and requiring force pushes. Collaborators must reclone. Creates backup refs that must be manually cleaned.

git-filter-repo(1), git-rebase(1), git-rm(1)

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