How do you install git-filter-repo?

pip install

They now have a python package that just works:

python3 -m pip install --user git-filter-repo

That method installs both the command line executable, and the Python library which you can use as shown here.

The executable is named git-filter-repo, and Git automatically picks up any executable in PATH with name git-* on calls like git *, which is how this works.

Ubuntu 23.04

On this Ubuntu version or the one before, Ubuntu started adding the supremely annoying (but somewhat understandable) "error: externally-managed-environment" message to any pip install.

Thankfully they have a debian package for this one so you can:

sudo apt install git-filter-repo

Alternatively you can also override the error, or use a virtual environment, or the new pipx thing: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75608323/how-do-i-solve-error-externally-managed-environment-every-time-i-use-pip-3

sudo apt install pipx
pipx install  git-filter-repo

which places the executable at ~/.local/bin/git-filter-repo.

I juts don't understand why pip stopped working with the good old --user, why do they keep changing the interface every two years!!!

Manual install

If for some reason you don't want to use pip, you can also just:

# Add to bashrc.
export PATH="${HOME}/bin:${PATH}"

mkdir -p ~/bin
wget -O ~/bin/git-filter-repo https://raw.githubusercontent.com/newren/git-filter-repo/7b3e714b94a6e5b9f478cb981c7f560ef3f36506/git-filter-repo
chmod +x ~/bin/git-filter-repo

Tested on Ubuntu 20.04, git-filter-repo ac039ecc095d.

On a Mac, you can install it using homebrew:

$ brew install git-filter-repo

This is how I got it to work.

1. Python should be installed and added to the system's path.
2. Git should be installed and git also added to the system's path.
3. Download git-filter-repo
4. Replace 'python3' on first line of file called git-filter-repo with 'python'. Depending on your python installation, you may skip this step.
5. Call git --exec-path
6. Move the git-filter-repo file into that location shown. (git's path).
7. To use, type git filter-repo. The help option will not work, but they have documentation online.

On a Mac, I simply downloaded https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo/blob/main/git-filter-repo into my ~/local/bin (which was already on my path and where I keep all my batch files etc). After chmod +x git-filter-repo, I just ran it from my repo dir like: git-filter-repo --path mydir.