title: Git Remove Large Files from History
body: <p>I have a huge git repository (810mb) with large files that should not be there: complete JRE archives for distribution, located in the folder <code>build/java</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I am trying to remove those files, so I ran:</p>
  
  <pre><code> git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf build/java' HEAD
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I now see the message:  <code>Your branch and 'origin/develop' have diverged,
  and have 414 and 414 different commits each, respectively.
    (use "git pull" to merge the remote branch into yours)</code></p>
  
  <p>I don't want to run <code>git pull</code>, but before I push to the remote repository on github I want to see that the repository has shrunk.</p>
  
  <p>Unfortunately, I still see it as 810mb.</p>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong?  How can I shrink that repository?</p>
  
  <p>TIA!</p>