Using Xargs to delete git history

Needed to delete the .git history out of a folder and subfolders and thought xargs would do what I needed to do.

First find all the relevant files using find

  • find . -type d -name ".git" : Find all the .git folders
  • find . -name ".gitignore" : Find all the .gitignore files
  • find . -name ".gitmodules" : Find all the .gitmodules files for submodules (there were none, but just in case)

Delete the files and or folders passed in xargs rm -rf

Logically find everything and then delete it all

( find . -type d -name ".git" && find . -name ".gitignore" && find . -name ".gitmodules" ) | xargs rm -rf