Why no large blobs found, what does "packed" mean?

[jtheletter]

I have a repo that's taking too long to push to GitHub. I was hopeful this tool could help.

If I run bfg --strip-blobs-bigger-than 10M, it says:

Scanning packfile for large blobs completed in 21 ms.
Warning : no large blobs matching criteria found in packfiles - does the repo need to be packed?
Please specify tasks for The BFG :
bfg 1.13.0

Does this mean it can't find any file larger than 10 MB that might have been accidentally committed? What does it mean in asking if the repo needs to be packed?

[ymartin59]

You may run git gc first to pack references, as far as you do not fear to lose old commits from reflogs.

[jtheletter]

Thank you for your answering. I moved forward with Git's filter-branch instead of BFG, it suited my needs better. I'd only ask BFG's authors to consider clarifying the above language in their app or docs. Cheers.

[hashimaziz1]

Great software, terrible UX and documentation. Here's the answer to anyone looking for the solution to this question: in short, do a git gc in your repo before following the instructions in the documentation.