Question

git filter-branch -f --index-filter 'git rm -r --cached --ignore-unmatch mysql_db' HEAD

That’s what I’m doing to remove mysql_db and that’s fine. But now I have to do it from all my tags. How can I do that?

Answer 1

You have to rewrite tag-names as well (they will then point to the rewritten commits):

git filter-branch -f \
  --index-filter 'git rm -r --cached --ignore-unmatch mysql_db' \
  --tag-name-filter 'cat' -- --all

Use --all to rewrite all commits, not just those reachable from the current HEAD commit.

From the manpage of git filter-branch:

--tag-name-filter

[…]

The original tags are not deleted, but can be overwritten; use “–tag-name-filter cat” to simply update the tags. In this case, be very careful and make sure you have the old tags backed up in case the conversion has run afoul.