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This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2023-07-06. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Archiving repositories

In this article

You can archive a repository to make it read-only for all users and indicate that it's no longer actively maintained. You can also unarchive repositories that have been archived.

About repository archival

Note: Customers who use GitHub Advanced Security can enable secret scanning on archived repositories. For more information, see "About secret scanning."

We recommend that you close all issues and pull requests, as well as update the README file and description, before you archive a repository.

Once a repository is archived, you cannot add or remove collaborators or teams. Contributors with access to the repository can only fork or star your project.

When a repository is archived, its issues, pull requests, code, labels, milestones, projects, wiki, releases, commits, tags, branches, reactions, code scanning alerts, comments and permissions become read-only. To make changes in an archived repository, you must unarchive the repository first.

You can search for archived repositories. For more information, see "Searching for repositories." You can also search for issues and pull requests within archived repositories. For more information, see "Searching issues and pull requests."

Archiving a repository

We recommend that you close all issues and pull requests, as well as update the README file and description, before you archive a repository.

  1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

    Screenshot of a repository header showing the tabs. The "Settings" tab is highlighted by a dark orange outline.

  3. Under "Danger Zone", click Archive this repository

  4. Read the warnings.

  5. In the text field, type the name of the repository you want to archive. Screenshot showing the "Archive repository" dialog box.

  6. Click I understand the consequences, archive this repository.

Unarchiving a repository

  1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

    Screenshot of a repository header showing the tabs. The "Settings" tab is highlighted by a dark orange outline.

  3. In the "Danger Zone" section, click Unarchive this repository

  4. Read the warnings.

  5. In the text box, type the name of the repository you want to unarchive.

  6. Click I understand the consequences, unarchive this repository.