Remove old empty years from my contribution history

[cdylan320]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Issues

Body

Hello everyone,

My GitHub username is cdyaln320.

My profile contribution calendar shows years from 2013 through 2017 in the year selector, but I have 0 contributions in those years.

I would like to remove these empty years (2013–2017) from the contribution calendar/year selector.

There are no commits or contributions from 2013–2017, and I don't want these years to appear on my profile.

Could you please check my contribution history and remove/rebuild the stale historical years from my contribution graph?

Thank you.

Guidelines

• I have read the above statement and can confirm my post is relevant to the GitHub feature areas Issues and/or Projects.

[GXDEVS]

Hi @cdyaln320,

Unfortunately, GitHub currently doesn't provide an option to manually remove or hide specific empty years from the contribution calendar/year selector.

There has been a similar discussion about removing blank years from a GitHub profile, and at the moment this isn't something users can configure themselves.

Since you're saying that the years 2013–2017 contain no contributions at all, this may be related to historical contribution metadata or indexing on GitHub's side.

GitHub's documentation mentions that, in some situations, a contribution graph may need to be rebuilt. So I would recommend contacting GitHub Support and asking them to check whether your contribution graph contains stale historical data and whether it can be reindexed/rebuilt.

You can also verify that there really isn't any activity associated with those years, such as old commits, repository creation/forks, issues, pull requests, or contributions associated with an old email address.

So, in short:

• There is currently no profile setting to remove individual years.
• If those years are appearing because of stale/incorrect historical data, GitHub Support would be the appropriate place to request a check or reindex.
• Avoid trying to modify commits just to manipulate the year selector, since that may not remove the years anyway.

Hope this helps!

[cdylan320]

Thanks for your attention.
But I already opened a ticket about the issue, but it was closed in just 10min.
The following was reply from the github support.

Thank you for reaching out to GitHub Support. After reviewing your account and the nature of your request, the support resources currently available to you are:

GitHub Community Discussions
GitHub Docs
GitHub Skills
Because these support options are self-service resources, we'll be closing this ticket at this time. We understand this may be disappointing, and we encourage you to explore those resources, as they often provide helpful guidance and next steps.

If your support options change in the future, please don't hesitate to reach out again.

Thanks,
Nadia

[RejishJ]

I'm experiencing same issue

[Dani-8]

@cdylan320 The reason GitHub Support closed the ticket with an automated response is because contribution graph adjustments are fully managed by the automated contribution indexing system.

Here is why those empty years (2013–2017) are showing up in your selector, and how you can fix/rebuild it yourself:

1. Hidden Activity Triggers
   GitHub adds a year to your profile selector if there was any recorded activity during that calendar year—even if it doesn't show green squares on your graph. Check if you have:
   • Commits authored with an email address that was previously linked to your account.
   • Opened/closed Issues or Pull Requests (even in deleted or archived repositories).
   • Created or deleted repositories during those years.

2. How to Rebuild & Remove the Empty Years
   • Check Email Attribution: Go to Settings → Emails. If you have old secondary email addresses added to your account that were used in commits back in 2013–2017, removing those emails will un-link those historical commits and automatically trigger a graph re-index.
   • Verify Private Contributions: Go to your profile page and check if "Include private contributions" is toggled on under your contribution settings menu. Toggle it off and on to force a client re-render.
   • Orphaned Commits / Force Push: If you previously had commits backdated to 2013–2017 in any repository, deleting those specific branches/repos or pushing a clean commit will force GitHub's backend worker to clean up and re-index your timeline within 24 hours.

Once the background re-indexer runs and verifies 0 linked activities across private, public, issue, and commit events for those years, 2013–2017 will disappear automatically from your year selector.

[RejishJ]

did you solve the issue

[RejishJ]

Title: Empty years remain in contribution calendar after repository deletion

Hello GitHub Community,

I'm looking for help with an issue involving the year selector on my GitHub profile's contribution calendar.

My GitHub account was created in 2024. My profile's year selector now includes years from 2014 through 2026, but the years 2014–2023 show no contributions at all.

I deleted the repository that had been associated with the historical activity. The repository has not been recreated, and the old contribution squares have disappeared. However, the earlier years remain available in the year selector, and selecting them displays completely empty calendars.

I've also checked my profile in a private browsing window, so the behavior does not appear to be caused by ordinary browser caching.

My account has only one verified email address. I haven't found any contributions for those earlier years that would explain why they remain in the selector.

Could someone clarify how GitHub determines which years appear in the contribution-calendar selector? Is there a way to refresh the relevant profile metadata or remove years that have no contributions?

I'd appreciate any guidance on whether this is expected behavior or something GitHub Support needs to investigate.

Thank you!