Use git-lfs on File Already Committed

I ran into an issue where I wanted to use Git Large File Storage on a file I had already committed to a repository without using git-lfs.

Let's say my file is some beefy design file that I saved to design/mockups.sketch.

Setup Git LFS

If you haven't already setup your repo to use git-lfs, that's where you should start. Tell Git you want to use LFS to track this file:

$ git lfs track desgin/mockups.sketch

This will place a .gitattributes file in your repo (if you didn't already have one). Commit this file:

$ git add .gitattributes
$ git commit -m "Use lfs on design mockups"

Track Already-Committed File

If you look at what LFS is currently tracking, it doesn't give you any feedback:

$ git lfs ls-files

That's because it's not tracking anything yet.

What we need to do is remove the file from Git's cache, then recommit it:

$ git rm --cached design/mockups.sketch
$ git add design/mockups.sketch
$ git commit -m "Begin tracking mockups with lfs"

And now if we look at what LFS is tracking, we see the file:

$ git lfs ls-files
036310e243 - design/mockups.sketch

References:

• git-lfs-example.sh gist