At some point I added a large file into a git repository. It now exists on multiple branches, possibly with some changes to it. I'd like to remove it from git, but leave its current form (say the one on the master branch) on the file system.
I tried (on a dummy git archive)
git filter-branch --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch bigfile' master branch1 branch2
That, however, does not leave a copy of bigfile on the file system.It isn't clear to me why not, though the description of the --tree-filteroption to filter-branch (I'm using the --index-filter option, but is is "similar") states:" (new files are auto-added, disappeared files are auto-removed ... )".
Is there a direct way to do what I want, with git? I've found similar requests;none of the responses point out that the above command actually deletes the file from the file system.
