Answer by schmijos for How to find/identify large commits in git history?

If you only want to have a list of large files, then I'd like to provide you with the following one-liner:

join -o "1.1 1.2 2.3" <(git rev-list --objects --all | sort) <(git verify-pack -v objects/pack/*.idx | sort -k3 -n | tail -5 | sort) | sort -k3 -n

Whose output will be:

commit       file name                                  size in bytes72e1e6d20... db/players.sql 818314ea20b964a... app/assets/images/background_final2.png 6739212f8344b9b5... data_test/pg_xlog/000000010000000000000001 16255451ecc2395c... data_development/pg_xlog/000000010000000000000001 16777216bc83d216d... app/assets/images/background_1forfinal.psd 95533848

The last entry in the list points to the largest file in your git history.

You can use this output to assure that you're not deleting stuff with BFG you would have needed in your history.

Be aware, that you need to clone your repository with --mirror for this to work.