Fork a repository

Fork a repository on GitHub to propose changes, collaborate on projects, and manage your own copy of the codebase.

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About forks

Forking a repository lets you propose changes to a project without affecting the upstream repository. See About forks.

Prerequisites

If you haven't already, set up Git and authentication with GitHub.com from Git. See Set up Git.

Forking a repository

You might fork a project to propose changes to the upstream repository. In this case, it's good practice to sync your fork with the upstream repository regularly. To do this, you'll need to use Git on the command line. You can practice setting the upstream repository using the same octocat/Spoon-Knife repository you just forked.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the octocat/Spoon-Knife repository.

  2. In the top-right corner of the page, click Fork.

    Screenshot of the main page of repository. A button, labeled with a fork icon and "Fork 59.3k," is outlined in dark orange.

  3. Under "Owner," select the dropdown menu and click an owner for the forked repository.

  4. By default, forks are named the same as their upstream repositories. Optionally, in the "Repository name" field, type a different name to distinguish your fork.

  5. Optionally, in the "Description" field, type a description of your fork.

  6. Optionally, select Copy the DEFAULT branch only.

    For many forking scenarios, such as contributing to open-source projects, you only need to copy the default branch. If you do not select this option, all branches will be copied into the new fork.

  7. Click Create fork.

Note

If you want to copy additional branches from the upstream repository, you can do so from the Branches page. See Managing branches within your repository.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To create a fork of a repository, use the gh repo fork subcommand.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY

To create the fork in an organization, use the --org flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --org "octo-org"

You can fork a repository on GitHub.com or in GitHub Desktop. For information about forking on GitHub.com, see the web browser version of this article.

In GitHub Desktop, if you clone a repository that you do not have write access to, and then attempt to push a change to the repository, a fork will be created for you.

  1. In the File menu, click Clone Repository.

    Screenshot of the menu bar on a Mac. The "File" dropdown menu is expanded, and the "Clone Repository" option is highlighted with an orange outline.

    Screenshot of the "GitHub Desktop" menu bar on Windows. The "File" dropdown menu is expanded, and the "Clone Repository" option is outlined in orange.

  2. Click the tab that corresponds to the location of the repository you want to clone. In this example, we click on the URL tab.

    Screenshot of the "URL" tab of the "Clone a repository" window. The "GitHub.com", "GitHub Enterprise" and "URL" tabs are outlined in dark orange.

  3. Enter the url or path of the repository you want to clone.

    Screenshot of the "URL" tab of the "Clone a repository" window. The input containing "octocat/Spoon-Knife" is highlighted with an orange outline.

  4. To select the local directory into which you want to clone the repository, next to the "Local Path" field, click Choose... and navigate to the directory.

    Screenshot of the "URL" tab of the "Clone a repository" window. A button, labeled "Choose", is highlighted with an orange outline.

  5. At the bottom of the "Clone a Repository" window, click Clone.

  6. To create a fork, attempt to push a change to the repository. For example, create a new branch and publish it. A prompt will appear asking if you want to fork this repository.

    Screenshot of the "Create a fork prompt" window. A button, labeled "Fork this repository", is highlighted with an orange outline.

  7. Read the information in the "How are you planning to use this fork?" window.

    • If you plan to use this fork for contributing to the original upstream repository, click To contribute to the parent project.
    • If you plan to use this fork for a project not connected to the upstream, click For my own purposes.

  8. Click Continue.

Cloning your forked repository

You now have a fork of the Spoon-Knife repository, but you do not have the files from that repository on your computer.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to your fork of the Spoon-Knife repository.

  2. Above the list of files, click Code.

    Screenshot of the list of files on the landing page of a repository. The "Code" button is highlighted with a dark orange outline.

  3. Copy the URL for the repository.

    • To clone the repository using HTTPS, under "HTTPS", click .

    • To clone the repository using an SSH key, including a certificate issued by your organization's SSH certificate authority, click SSH, then click .

    • To clone a repository using GitHub CLI, click GitHub CLI, then click .

      Screenshot of the "Code" dropdown menu. To the right of the HTTPS URL for the repository, a copy icon is outlined in dark orange.

  4. Open your terminal or Git Bash.

  5. Change the current working directory to the location where you want the cloned directory.

  6. Type git clone, then paste the URL you copied earlier. It will look like this, with your GitHub username instead of YOUR-USERNAME:

    git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Spoon-Knife

  7. Press Enter. Git creates your local clone.

    $ git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Spoon-Knife
> Cloning into `Spoon-Knife`...
> remote: Counting objects: 10, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
> remote: Total 10 (delta 1), reused 10 (delta 1)
> Unpacking objects: 100% (10/10), done.

Cloning your forked repository

You now have a fork of the Spoon-Knife repository, but you do not have the files from that repository on your computer.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To create a clone of your fork, use the --clone flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --clone=true

Configuring Git to sync your fork with the upstream repository

When you fork a project to propose changes to the upstream repository, you can configure Git to pull changes from the upstream repository into the local clone of your fork.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the octocat/Spoon-Knife repository.

  2. Above the list of files, click Code.

    Screenshot of the list of files on the landing page of a repository. The "Code" button is highlighted with a dark orange outline.

  3. Copy the URL for the repository.

    • To clone the repository using HTTPS, under "HTTPS", click .

    • To clone the repository using an SSH key, including a certificate issued by your organization's SSH certificate authority, click SSH, then click .

    • To clone a repository using GitHub CLI, click GitHub CLI, then click .

      Screenshot of the "Code" dropdown menu. To the right of the HTTPS URL for the repository, a copy icon is outlined in dark orange.

  4. Open your terminal or Git Bash.

  5. Change to the directory for the fork you cloned.

    • To go to your home directory, type just cd with no other text.
    • To list the files and folders in your current directory, type ls.
    • To go into one of your listed directories, type cd YOUR-LISTED-DIRECTORY.
    • To go up one directory, type cd ...

  6. Type git remote -v and press Enter. You will see the remote repository currently configured for your fork.

    $ git remote -v
> origin  https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (fetch)
> origin  https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (push)

  7. Type git remote add upstream, then paste the URL you copied in Step 3 and press Enter. It will look like this:

    git remote add upstream https://github.com/ORIGINAL-OWNER/Spoon-Knife.git

  8. To verify the new upstream repository you specified for your fork, type git remote -v again. You should see the URL for your fork as origin and the URL for the upstream repository as upstream.

    $ git remote -v
> origin    https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (fetch)
> origin    https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-FORK.git (push)
> upstream  https://github.com/ORIGINAL-OWNER/ORIGINAL-REPOSITORY.git (fetch)
> upstream  https://github.com/ORIGINAL-OWNER/ORIGINAL-REPOSITORY.git (push)

You can now keep your fork synced with the upstream repository with a few Git commands. See Syncing a fork.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To configure a remote repository for the forked repository, use the --remote flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --remote=true

To specify the remote repository's name, use the --remote-name flag.

gh repo fork REPOSITORY --remote-name "main-remote-repo"

Editing a fork

You can make any changes to a fork, including:

  • Creating branches: Branches allow you to build new features or test out ideas without putting your main project at risk.
  • Opening pull requests: If you want to contribute back to the upstream repository, you can submit a pull request to ask the original author to pull your fork into their repository. See Creating a pull request from a fork.

Find another repository to fork

Fork a repository to start contributing to a project. You can fork any public repository:

  • To your personal account
  • To an organization where you have permission to create repositories

If you have access to a private repository and the owner permits forking, you can fork the repository:

  • To your personal account
  • To an organization on GitHub Team where you have permission to create repositories

You cannot fork a private repository to an organization using GitHub Free. For more information about GitHub Team and GitHub Free, see GitHub's plans.

For more information about when you can fork a repository, see Forks.

You can browse Explore GitHub to find projects and start contributing to open source repositories. See Finding ways to contribute to open source on GitHub.

Next steps

You have now forked a repository, practiced cloning your fork, and configured an upstream repository.

  • For more information about using Git on the command line to clone and sync changes, see Set up Git.

  • You can also create a new repository to store your projects and share the code on GitHub. Creating a repository for your project allows you to store code in GitHub. This provides a backup of your work that you can choose to share with other developers. For more information, see Quickstart for repositories.

  • Each repository on GitHub is owned by a person or an organization. You can interact with the people, repositories, and organizations by connecting and following them on GitHub. For more information, see Finding inspiration on GitHub.

  • GitHub has a great support community where you can ask for help and talk to people from around the world. Join the conversation on GitHub Community.