Removing sensitive data from a repository

If you commit sensitive data, such as a password or SSH key into a Git repository, you can remove it from the history. To entirely remove unwanted files from a repository’s history you can use either the git filter-branch command

Warning: If you run git filter-branch after stashing changes, you won’t be able to retrieve your changes with other stash commands. Before running git filter-branch, we recommend unstashing any changes you’ve made. To unstash the last set of changes you’ve stashed, run git stash show -p | git apply -R.

$ git filter-branch --force --index-filter \
    'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE-WITH-SENSITIVE-DATA' \
    --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

$ git push origin --force --all