GitHub "Clone to Desktop" with Windows GitHub.


You download GitHub code by "cloning" the repository to a local repository.  They call this a desktop clone. Each  GitHub repository home page has a neat "Clone to Desktop" button in the web interface that you would think clones the repository to your desktop.  

That button actually takes you to the GitHub Windows application download page even if you have the GitHub app already installed. This is where I usually get stuck and head off to some search engine for help.

The Windows GitHub application tries to tell you what to do at the bottom of the "local repository" screen.  It says to "Drag a repository here to add". That phrase always confused me. I can never figure out where to drag the repository from.









It turns out you are supposed to drag the URL for the repository from your browser onto the desktop application.  

Resize your browser window so you can drag the repository onto the GitHub windows application. It will immediately clone that repository to your local GitHub repository.

This example shows the location in the browser of the component you grab and drag onto the main GitHub application window.

 



Comments

  1. Paul VanderveenAugust 28, 2014 at 10:04 AM

    Thank you for this post! I was getting so frustrated that I was about to throw my computer out the window. I cannot believe that GitHub has not made this more clear. On my GitHub on Wndows 8 I don't even see the "drag here" box, so I had no clue what to do

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 4, 2014 at 3:11 PM

    Thank you so much. You save me lots of time. Just the same as Paul's situation, I don't see "drag here" either. Clicking "Clone in Desktop" directs me to the download page, not activating GitHub for Windows. This happens with version 2. With GitHub Desktop version 1, I got no problem at all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 4, 2014 at 3:26 PM

    Hi, I just want to update this. On github.com, you have to log in and then clicking Clone in Desktop will work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMay 18, 2015 at 7:40 PM

      This was key for me! Once I logged in I could clone to desktop - thanks so much!!!

      Delete
    2. UnknownJune 18, 2015 at 3:39 AM

      Logged in and clone in Desktop didn't work at all.

      Thanks for drag&drop solution!

      Delete
    3. CoggzBloggzSeptember 5, 2015 at 10:45 AM

      Yes, that did the trick!

      Delete
  4. UnknownSeptember 16, 2014 at 1:31 PM

    I was using "Clone in Desktop" until I ran into some small inconveniences. I now prefer to copy the clone URL, and run a basic "git clone " through command line. More details:
    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25816844/how-can-i-hide-the-pr-remote-branches

    ReplyDelete
  5. HenriqueNovember 21, 2014 at 7:50 PM

    Thank You Very Much!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. DinuDecember 19, 2014 at 4:46 AM

    Thanks for the post, as Paul said there is no 'drag here' option as well.

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownJanuary 16, 2015 at 4:43 PM

    Thank you for that. What a stupid setup on github!

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownFebruary 1, 2015 at 11:37 AM

    Thanks for that, this problem has been really frustrating me!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Bella DonnaFebruary 25, 2015 at 7:48 AM

    Thanks! The drag and drop thing works as you described.

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownMarch 5, 2015 at 7:23 AM

    Thanks for that, couldn't find the info anywhere else. Whilst the Github client looks very nice it is very much as case of style over substance when something that should be so simple requires multiple web searches.

    ReplyDelete
  11. 可愛蜥蜴的歡樂世界March 28, 2015 at 3:21 AM

    Whis is what I need! Thanks for the great help
    What a terrible software operating design github is!

    ReplyDelete
  12. ScholliiJuly 5, 2015 at 10:24 PM

    Both ways worked for me:
    1. log in to github in web browser then Clone in Desktop
    2. without being logged into github, drag the URL of code you want to clone to your github desktop application window
    Thanks so much for posting!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thomas EydeAugust 9, 2015 at 7:12 AM

    Must be the most terrible ui ever. I downloaded the latest version today, logged into both app and web, clicked Clone in Desktop. The app was activated and then nothing. Why is the button still there when it clearly doesn't do what it used to? And why aren't there any hints, both in app and web, that drag-n-drop is the thing..?

    ReplyDelete
  14. M0IOTSeptember 8, 2015 at 6:44 PM

    Where's a UX specialist when you need one? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  15. MattiOctober 8, 2015 at 7:02 AM

    ah, OK On windows 10 there is no "drag here" box either. For several days, the 'clone to desktop' button took me to the windows client download page but it seems to be fixed today. Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete
  16. UnknownOctober 11, 2015 at 4:36 PM

    Thanks for that! "Clone to desktop" button still seems to take you to the download page. Very very un-intuitive.

    ReplyDelete
  17. UnknownOctober 18, 2015 at 11:36 AM

    This has gotten retarded, and I can't tell if it's because of GitHub, Chrome, or Windows. Chrome normally opens up a window asking if you want to always launch the app or not, now it doesn't for GitHub, and GitHub for Windows has a very unintuitive interface for adding repos, which I've already discussed with them. Really, make it as easy as possible for the user to get as much done as possible, and they will love you, otherwise you're wasting everyone's time and they won't want to use your products any more than they have to.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Otha LeaNovember 6, 2015 at 7:58 AM

    What a wonderful post. I truly enjoyed reading this.
    Bluetooth balance board

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ken ShirriffNovember 13, 2015 at 10:51 AM

    I searched through so many Github documents and web pages before finding your drag-and-drop solution. Thank you for writing this page!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Harry G.November 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM

    +1 thanks for the hint! Same problem here (Firefox, reinstall of GitHub Windows solved it for 1-2 times only)

    ReplyDelete
  21. UnknownDecember 9, 2015 at 9:11 AM

    Thank you - I thought I was going nuts! - GITHUB are you deliberately making this difficult for new users?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thomas BurkhartJanuary 13, 2016 at 3:19 AM

    Thanks so much, me too was stuck and now it works!!!

    ReplyDelete
  23. UnknownJanuary 17, 2016 at 10:54 AM

    Thank you so much.

    ReplyDelete
  24. UnknownFebruary 7, 2016 at 11:26 AM

    You're the king! For some reason, the GitHub desktop button on the repository pages had stopped working for me. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  25. EnzoFebruary 23, 2016 at 9:26 AM

    How can be done the URL dragging from the Edge browser? That easy way seems to work only with IE ...

    ReplyDelete
  26. Abdel RamadanMay 25, 2016 at 4:59 AM

    I am so grateful for this post. Having spent some time trying to download desktop Github, after successful install, I was stuck on cloning. Thanks very much for this post. :)

    ReplyDelete
  27. Tobi DelbruckJune 11, 2016 at 3:54 AM

    Yeah, github desktop is not a great newbie experience. And github is supposed to be so great. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  28. VivianaJune 24, 2016 at 4:40 PM

    Nice tip! Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  29. UnknownAugust 3, 2016 at 8:51 PM

    Along with everyone else here..."Thank you!" Most helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  30. WT29August 13, 2016 at 11:54 PM

    Thanks Joe - I echo the comments above. This had me stumped until I found your post.

    ReplyDelete
  31. SquatneyRebelNovember 10, 2016 at 7:16 AM

    Thanks, as a newbie I'm rapidly coming to hate github. The useless button makes me think it sucks even more. There was no drag to here prompt in the desktop client Chocolate-Covered Yaks (3.3.2.0) 570bd2e, but when I dragged the icon a message appeared, by which stage it was too late because I'd already done what the message was prompting me to do.

    ReplyDelete
  32. itzrahulsoniJanuary 27, 2017 at 6:43 AM

    Check the following for latest instructions on Github client. It also talking about branching and merging easily https://www.attosol.com/create-and-merge-branches-using-github-desktop-client/

    ReplyDelete
  33. Keith's BlogJanuary 28, 2017 at 8:36 PM

    Thanks, Joe. Like so many others, I had no clue what to do.

    ReplyDelete
  34. WeiJanuary 29, 2017 at 12:08 PM

    Thank you for this!!!

    ReplyDelete
  35. UnknownMarch 30, 2017 at 11:58 AM

    Thanks, came to this about 4 times over the last 2 years but just ended up downloading the zip instead as couldnt be arsed working it out. Good to finally be told how to do it, clearly and simply.

    ReplyDelete
  36. ChuckDecember 27, 2017 at 9:32 PM

    I've found that the "clone Desktop" button seems to remember that I was using a Mac earlier. Problem is that now I'm in the Windows Github client - and the "Open in desktop" button throws out a url that starts with "github-mac://openRepo/https://github.com/"

    So I clicked "open in new tab" on the button to capture the url, replaced "mac" with "windows" and it works.
    Quirky.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Installing the RNDIS driver on Windows 11 to use USB Raspberry Pi as network attached

Image
I do a lot of my development and configuration via ssh into my Raspberry Pi Zero over the RNDIS connection. Some models of the Raspberry PIs can be configured with  gadget drivers  that let the Raspberry pi emulate different devices when plugged into computers via USB. My favorite gadget  is the network profile that makes a Raspberry Pi look like an RNDIS-attached network device.  All types of network services travel over an RNDIS device without knowing it is a USB hardware connection. A Raspberry Pi shows up as a Remote NDIS (RNDIS) device when you plug the Pi into a PC or Mac via a USB cable. The gadget  in the Windows Device Manager picture shows this RNDIS Gadget connectivity between a Windows machine and a Raspberry Pi. The Problem Windows 11 and Windows 10 no longer auto-installs the RNDIS driver that makes magic happen. Windows recognizes that the Raspberry Pi is some type of generic USB COM device. Manually running W indows Update  or  Update Driver  does  not  install the RNDI
Read more

Understanding your WSL2 RAM and swap - Changing the default 50%-25%

Image
The Windows Subsystem for Linux operates as a virtual machine that can dynamically grow the amount of RAM to a maximum set at startup time.  Microsoft sets a default maximum RAM available to 50% of the physical memory and a swap-space that is 1/4 of the maximum WSL RAM.  You can scale those numbers up or down to allocate more or less RAM to the Linux instance. The first drawing shows the default WSL memory and swap space sizing. The images below show a developer machine that is running a dev environment in WSL2 and Docker Desktop.  Docker Desktop has two of its own WSL modules that need to be accounted for.  You can see that the memory would actually be oversubscribed, 3 x 50% if every VM used its maximum memory.  The actual amount of memory used is significantly smaller allowing every piece to fit. Click to Enlarge The second drawing shows the memory allocation on my 64GB laptop. WSL Linux defaults to a maximum RAM size of 5
Read more

Almost PaaS Document Parsing with Tika and AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Image
The Apache Tika project provides a  library capable of parsing and extracting data and meta data from over 1000 file types.  Tika is available as a single jar file that can be included inside applications or as a deployable jar file that runs Tika as a standalone service. This blog describes deploying the Tika jar as an auto-scale service in Amazon AWS Elastic Beanstalk.  I selected Elastic Beanstalk because it supports jar based deployments without any real Infrastructure configuration. Elastic Beanstalk auto-scale should take care of scaling up and down for for the number of requests you get. Tika parses documents and extracts their text completely in memory. Tika was deployed for this blog using EC2 t2.micro instances available in the AWS free tier. t2.micro VMs are 1GB which means that you are restricted in document complexity and size. You would size your instances appropriately for your largest documents.   Preconditions An AWS account. AWS access id and secret key.
Read more