to 0 disables automatic packing of loose objects.
+
If the number of packs exceeds the value of `gc.autoPackLimit`,
-then existing packs (except those marked with a `.keep` file)
+then existing packs (except those marked with a `.keep` file
+or over `gc.bigPackThreshold` limit)
are consolidated into a single pack by using the `-A` option of
-'git repack'. Setting `gc.autoPackLimit` to 0 disables
-automatic consolidation of packs.
+'git repack'.
+If the amount of memory is estimated not enough for `git repack` to
+run smoothly and `gc.bigPackThreshold` is not set, the largest
+pack will also be excluded (this is the equivalent of running `git gc`
+with `--keep-base-pack`).
+Setting `gc.autoPackLimit` to 0 disables automatic consolidation of
+packs.
+
If houskeeping is required due to many loose objects or packs, all
other housekeeping tasks (e.g. rerere, working trees, reflog...) will
--keep-largest-pack::
All packs except the largest pack and those marked with a
- `.keep` files are consolidated into a single pack.
+ `.keep` files are consolidated into a single pack. When this
+ option is used, `gc.bigPackThreshold` is ignored.
-Configuration
+CONFIGURATION
-------------
The optional configuration variable `gc.reflogExpire` can be
much time is spent optimizing the delta compression of the objects in
the repository when the --aggressive option is specified. The larger
the value, the more time is spent optimizing the delta compression. See
-the documentation for the --window' option in linkgit:git-repack[1] for
+the documentation for the --window option in linkgit:git-repack[1] for
more details. This defaults to 250.
Similarly, the optional configuration variable `gc.aggressiveDepth`
it. Default is "3 months ago".
-Notes
+NOTES
-----
'git gc' tries very hard not to delete objects that are referenced