How to remove empty commits in Git

In the previous tutorial, we’ve learned How to create empty commits in Git. Let’s see how can we remove them as well.

Prerequisites

• Git

Solution

Step 1. Once you’ve created an empty commit (if not, run git commit --allow-empty -m "Test empty commit"), try to list empty commits only:

git rev-list HEAD | while read commitHash; do
    if [ $(git diff-tree --name-status --no-commit-id $commitHash | wc -l) -eq 0 ]; then
        echo $commitHash
    fi;
done

Example hash value output from the empty commit:

af4c5c59e2cbd56385a0c7103b198e54df07464f

Step 2. Remove the empty commit:

git filter-branch --commit-filter 'git_commit_non_empty_tree "$@"' -f HEAD

Parameters:
-filter-branch = allows you to rewrite branches.
-commit-filter = filter for performing the commit.
git_commit_non_empty_tree "$@" = including this parameter with -commit-filter will skip commits that leave the tree untouched. Tree hash stays the same if no files are changed, hence the empty commit.
-f = short for --force.

Step 3. Confirm the empty commit removal, by executing the command in Step 1 again.

Conclusion

If something goes wrong, just rm -rf the repository and clone it again (just kidding).
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