Repository is in read only mode and cannot remove one large file

Noah Bliss

We have one large file that is several GB pushed to the repository by accident and we cannot remove the file due to the read only restriction. I followed the guide you posted about reducing the repository size yet none of it worked because of the read only restriction. If you could delete the problematic file that would be wonderful, thanks in advance!

Stephen Sifers

Hello Noah and welcome to the Community!

You are free to contact Support for help with Bitbucket. However, support will only delete the contents of a Bitbucket repository if there is a GDPR compliance request. Other than that support does not delete items out of customer repositories. Alternatively, you will need to clean up your local repository and push it to Bitbucket to free up the space.

Bitbucket cloud (Free version) offers 1GB of storage, with a 2GB hard stop limit on storage. If you exceed the 1GB and hit the hard stop of 2GB then your repository will become read-only until you clear out storage. There are multiple steps to clear our, resolve and address storage issues within Bitbucket. You may find all of those steps at Reduce repository size.

Additionally, there are reports that the following assisted with removing large files from a git repository: https://gist.github.com/sabarasaba/3080590

Along with this, you may also consider upgrading from Free to Standard which would allow for 5GB of storage. To find more about Bitbucket available tiers, please see Plans and billing.

I hope this clarifies your options to help resolve your bitbucket storage issues.

Regards,
Stephen Sifers