How to install Git Large File Storage on Windows?

Question

According to its doc, double-click should be enough. But when I opened git bash and ran git lfs init, it doesn't work:

$ git lfs init
git: 'lfs' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.

Answer 1

The only reason why "git lfs" would not be a git command would be because the git-lfs.exe hasn't been put in your %PATH%.

That is what the git-lfs-windows-amd64-0.5.3\install.bat is supposed to do.

set GIT_LFS_BIN_PATH="%LOCALAPPDATA%\GitLFS\bin"
IF EXIST %GIT_LFS_BIN_PATH% GOTO DIRECTORY_EXISTS
mkdir %GIT_LFS_BIN_PATH%
set "path=%PATH%;%GIT_LFS_BIN_PATH:"=%"

So:

• Make sure install.bat was successfully executed
• Check the content of "%LOCALAPPDATA%\GitLFS\bin"
• make sure to open a new CMD Windows
• Check your %PATH% environment variable

Answer 2

Just adding my 2c in case someone lands on this page..

The easiest (and I believe most "correct") option to install LFS on Windows is to use the windows' built-in winget package manager

winget install -e --id GitHub.GitLFS

I was getting the same error as you after simply running the downloaded installer, however the winget command fixed it for me.

PS. Even if you don't have winget - running winget will automatically install it from MS Store