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Viewing a pull request in GitHub Desktop

You can view proposed changes in open pull requests on GitHub Desktop.

About pull requests in GitHub Desktop

You can view pull requests that you or your collaborators have proposed in GitHub Desktop. Pull requests let you propose changes to projects, provide feedback and reviews, and merge changes into projects. For more information, see "About pull requests."

When you view a pull request in GitHub Desktop, you can see a history of commits that contributors made. You can also see which files the commits modified, added, or deleted. From GitHub Desktop, you can open repositories in your preferred text editor to view any changes or make additional changes. After reviewing changes in a pull request, you can give feedback on GitHub. For more information, see "About pull request reviews."

If checks have been enabled in your repository, GitHub Desktop will show the status of the checks on the pull request and allow you to re-run checks. For more information, see "Viewing and re-running checks in GitHub Desktop."

Viewing a pull request in GitHub Desktop

  1. In GitHub Desktop, click Current Branch.

    Screenshot of the repository bar. A button, labeled "Current Branch" with a downward arrow indicating a dropdown menu, is outlined in orange.

  2. At the top of the drop-down menu, click Pull Requests. Screenshot of the "Current Branch" dropdown menu. A tab, labeled "Pull Requests", is highlighted with an orange outline.

  3. In the list of pull requests, click the pull request you want to view.

    Optionally, to refresh the list of pull requests, click .

    Screenshot of the "Pull Requests" tab. A button, labeled with an icon of two arrows forming a circle, is highlighted with an orange outline.

Opening a pull request in GitHub Desktop from GitHub

  1. Under your repository name, click Pull requests.

    Screenshot of the main page of a repository. In the horizontal navigation bar, a tab, labeled "Pull requests," is outlined in dark orange.

  2. In the list of pull requests, click the pull request that you would like to open in GitHub Desktop.

  3. To the right of the title of the pull request, click Code, then, on the Local tab, click Checkout with GitHub Desktop.

    Screenshot of a pull request on GitHub. The "Code" dropdown menu is expanded, and a button, labeled "Checkout with GitHub Desktop" is outlined in orange.