How to reduce Bitbucket Cloud repository size after local cleanup and force push?

[Numan Shahid]

Hi Bitbucket Team,

[REDACTED]

We recently cleaned up our Git repository to reduce its size. Locally, we ran the following commands:

git reflog expire --expire=now --all
git reflog expire --expire-unreachable=now --all
git prune --expire=now -v
git gc --aggressive --prune=now

We also removed large files and cleaned the commit history using BFG Repo-Cleaner. After that, we force-pushed all branches and tags back to Bitbucket:

git push --force --all
git push --force --tags

Now, the local repository size has been significantly reduced, but the repository size on Bitbucket Cloud still shows the old size and usage warnings remain.

Could you please run a **server-side garbage collection (GC)** on our repository to finalize the size reduction?

[Ben]

Hi @Numan Shahid 

I noticed that you performed a number of repo deletions already to get your workspace below 1GB.

I've taken a look at your 3 largest repositories and have server-side garbage collected these with mixed results:

• 160.4MB > 18.5MB
• 123.9 > 123.7MB
• 100.7MB > 71.4MB

You are well below the 1GB limit (459MB) - please let me know if you need further assistance.

Cheers!

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)

[Numan Shahid]

Hi Ben,

Thanks a lot for checking and running the server-side garbage collection. The size reductions look great, and I’m glad we’re now well under the 1GB limit. Appreciate your support on this!

Will reach out if anything else comes up.

[Vitalii Rybka]

Hi Numan 

Great job on performing the local cleanup — sounds like you've followed all the right steps with BFG and aggressive GC.

However, in Bitbucket Cloud, server-side garbage collection is not triggered automatically after a force push, and unfortunately, users can’t manually trigger it either.

Here's what you can do:

1. Raise a support ticket with Atlassian
   Since you're on Bitbucket Cloud, only Atlassian Support can trigger a server-side GC for your repo.
   👉 Submit a support ticket here

   Be sure to include:

   • A link to the repository

   • Confirmation that you've force-pushed all cleaned branches and tags

   • Mention that you're requesting server-side GC to reflect the reduced size

2. Wait a bit
   Sometimes Bitbucket eventually performs GC as part of its background maintenance, but this can take days or even weeks.

Tip:

Make sure all refs (branches, tags, pull requests) referencing old data are deleted — orphaned references can prevent GC from reclaiming space.

Let me know if you need help double-checking those!