How to delete all Git commits except the last five

Question

I have a very large Git repository which only contains binary files which are changed pretty often. Naturally the Git repository is much larger than the actual

Answer 1

Ok, if you want what I think you want (see my comment), I think this should work:

1. Create branch to save all the commits (and just in case):

   git branch fullhistory

2. While still on master, reset --hard to the commit you want to retain history from:

   git reset --hard HEAD~5

3. Now reset without --hard to the beginning of history, this should leave your workspace untouched, so it remains in HEAD~5 state.

   git reset --soft

4. So now you have empty history on master, and all the changes you need in the workspace. Just commit them.

   git commit -m "all the old changes squashed"

5. Now cherry-pick this 4 commits from fullhistory you want to have here:

   git cherry-pick A..B

Where A is older than B, and remember A is NOT included. So it should be parent of the oldest commit you want to include.