DISCLAIMER: This will rewrite your Git history and you won't be able to go back in time if you don't make a backup.

You have removed secret variables from your repo, but they obviously still show up in your Git history. There are several ways to get rid of them completely, and here's the quickest:

Make sure you have Java installed Install BFG On macOS: brew install bfg Clone your repo in its entirety (every refs) inside a bare repo git clone --mirror url/to/your/repo.git Create a file with a new line for each string you want to remove (each string will be rewritten as ***REMOVED*** by default) echo "my_secret_API_key" >> secret.txt

echo "glob:SECRET_*" >> secret.txt (search by glob pattern)

(search by glob pattern) echo "regex:password=\w+==>password=" >> secret.txt (search by regex pattern and change default rewritten text) Remove the strings in your repo history bfg --replace-text secret.txt repo.git cd repo.git Now is the time to verify in your history that everything's fine Clean your repo from dirty data git reflog expire --expire=now --all && git gc --prune=now --aggressive Push your changes (forcing is not necessary because you updated every refs) git push Notify your coworkers that they have to clean their branches git fetch origin/branch

git checkout -B branch origin/branch

Note that if your repo is public, the Git history might have been cloned somewhere in the world, so your sensitive are already compromised. In that case, beware of a "Streisand" effect...

In any case, it's best to regenerate your existing passwords, because they may have leaked.

In the future, try not to commit sensitive information in the first place ;) Here's some tips:

Use git diff --cached to verify the content that you're going to commit

to verify the content that you're going to commit Put sensitive information in *.secret files that are ignored in your .gitignore

I narrowed this article to removing sensitive information from files, but you can do much more with BFG, including removing secret files entirely. Check out all the BFG features!