How does one use LFS in Sourcetree

[Ben_Iyan]

I've been using Sourcetree for a few years now, and really like it because of the way it abstracts away the console command. I'm only recently looking into LFS in Git, after reading an entry on Unity's Asset Store page about a product called Plasticscm. I've read online that Git LFS comes bundled with Sourcetree, but I can't find how to activate it/include it in my project. Can anyone point me towards a tutorial on how to use Git LFS within Sourcetree? Thanks.

[Ana Retamal · Accepted solution]

Hi Dean, welcome to the Community!

Is your project using Git LFS already? If not, you need to install Git LFS and make your repository aware of it as explained at Tutorial Git LFS.

After that, you can go to Sourcetree and choose whether you prefer to use embedded git LFS or system git LFS?

Hope that helps!
Ana

[Ben_Iyan]

Hi Ana,

No, my project is not currently using Git LFS. It's only after I became aware of Plasticscm that I started looking into the issue.

I am still unclear about where I go from here, so hopefully you're patient. If Sourcetree comes bundled with Git LFS, why do I need to install a system version if I'll only ever use the one with Sourcetree? Sorry to be such a noob.

Dean

[klausisbruch]

Hi Dean,
if you follow the instructions Ana asked you to look into (Tutorial Git LFS), you find this sentence "Install Sourcetree, a free Git GUI client that comes bundled with Git LFS".
If you have a recent version of source tree, you are, locally, all set already.

Next steps are also described in the tutorial, like enabling lfs on the Bitbucket server for the repo(s) where you want to use it, and how to tell git, which file types it should put under lfs.

[Rafa González-Iglesias Glez_]

Is there any tutorial on how to use directly sourcetree to handle lfs files in a new repository you want to push or sourcetree doesn't do the trick and you would end up having to install git, then git lfs, then by command line do everything and then uninstalling finally sourcetree?

[dkardell]

After that, you can go to Sourcetree and choose whether you prefer to use embedded git LFS or system git LFS?  - Where do you choose to use LFS?

[Dirk Claus]

I am having the same concern as @Ben_Iyan.

I personally am using both, Sourcetree as well as terminal command tools.

Latest versions of Sourcetree prompt you when you're cloning (or just opening) a repo with LFS enabled, to activate (install/configure) the Sourcetree embedded Git LFS.

I found the Sourcetree Preferences / Git where you see the embedded Git and Git-LFS versions as well as having the possibility to "Reset to Embedded Git" vs. "Use System Git" and similar for `git-flow` and `git-lfs`.

However, I don't see any command line tool paths for the embedded tooling, I might be able to re-use for the Terminal. So it seems I have to live with additionally `brew install git-lfs` for my Terminal use case. Of course my Terminal binary versions are different from Sourcetree embedded tooling :(

[Ben_Iyan]

Thanks for clearing that up. To be honest, I had become frustrated with Sourcetree and had moved to Github desktop because I found the LFS integration to be more intuitive. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.