`git-annex unused` has to compare large sets of data (all keys with content present in the repository, with all keys used by files in the repository), and so uses more memory than git-annex typically needs. It used to be a lot worse (hundreds of megabytes). Now it only needs enough memory to store a Set of all Keys that currently have content in the annex. On a lightly populated repository, it runs in quite low memory use (like 8 mb) even if the git repo has 100 thousand files. On a repository with lots of file contents, it will use more. Still, I would like to reduce this to a purely constant memory use, as running in constant memory no matter the repo size is a git-annex design goal. One idea is to use a bloom filter. For example, construct a bloom filter of all keys used by files in the repository. Then for each key with content present, check if it's in the bloom filter. Since there can be false positives, this might miss finding some unused keys. The probability/size of filter could be tunable. > Fixed in `bloom` branch in git. --[[Joey]] >> [[done]]! --[[Joey]] Another way might be to scan the git log for files that got removed or changed what key they pointed to. Correlate with keys with content currently present in the repository (possibly using a bloom filter again), and that would yield a shortlist of keys that are probably not used. Then scan thru all files in the repo to make sure that none point to keys on the shortlist.