How to Delete Commit History Using git revert, git reset and Force Push

When an accidental commit is pushed to a shared repository, you may need to remove it without leaving traces. The article first introduces git revert <commit-hash> , which creates a new commit that undoes the changes of the specified commit while keeping the original history intact.

It then details the syntax for reverting a single commit, multiple commits, the latest commit, and a range of commits, and shows how Git opens an editor for the revert commit message.

Next, the tutorial moves to git reset , a more powerful command that moves the HEAD pointer. It covers three common reset modes:

git reset --soft HEAD~1 – moves HEAD back one commit but keeps all changes staged.

git reset HEAD~1 – moves HEAD back one commit and unstages the changes, leaving them in the working directory.

git reset --hard HEAD~1 – discards the commit and all associated changes, restoring the repository to the previous state.

For cases where multiple erroneous commits need to be removed, the article shows using git reset HEAD~2 to move the HEAD pointer back two commits.

Since the remote repository still contains the unwanted history, the guide advises a forced push: git push --force (or the equivalent git push origin <branch-name> --force ) to overwrite the remote history with the cleaned local state. It emphasizes that this operation is dangerous and should only be performed when you are certain the local and remote histories are compatible.

The article concludes with a comparison: git reset changes the branch pointer and can delete history without creating new commits, whereas git revert preserves history by adding a new commit that reverses the changes.

Throughout, the tutorial includes practical command snippets wrapped in ... tags and screenshots illustrating the before‑and‑after states of the repository.