title: Git history contains unwanted files, removing them proving to be messy
body: <p>So I want a bunch of files to be untracked and unchanged by Git. If I add them to gitignore, that doesn't remove them retroactively. If I remove them via <a href="https://help.github.com/articles/remove-sensitive-data/" rel="nofollow">this method</a>, they disappear from all commits, but they actually disappear from my current working copy, too. I still need these files, I just don't need Git tracking them.</p>
  
  <p>Any way to remove files as though they were there all along but not part of Git's "domain"?</p>
  
  <p>For some reason, any of the usual methods for removing files leave the repo still just as large (~2.9GB) and it should be a couple of MB at most, if it were to only include my specific code.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>FIXED!! Changing the memory settings in the config file allowed me to perform the git gc which is part of the procedure listed on <a href="https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Maintenance-and-Data-Recovery#Removing-Objects" rel="nofollow">this page</a>. The settings I used were:</p>
  
  <pre><code>threads = 1
  deltaCacheSize = 128m
  windowMemory = 50m
  </code></pre>