After you sign up, you will receive a verification email. Be sure to verify your email address to GitHub by following the instructions in that email.

Installing GitHub desktop

Once you have your GitHub account set up, you are ready to install GitHub Desktop.

In your browser:

• Open a new browser tab.
• Navigate todesktop.github.com
• Download GitHub Desktop.

Once installed, open the GitHub Desktop application. You should see a screen that looks like this:

Click “Sign in to GitHub.com” and sign in using your GitHub username (or email associated with your GitHub account) and password. You should now see this:

Here you should enter the name and email for your Git account – this information is used to identify the commits you create. You can use your GitHub username for your name and the email associated with your GitHub account for your email. Click “Continue” once you complete this step.

Click “Finish” on the next screen.

You’re now ready to start using GitHub Desktop!

Creating a repository in GitHub desktop

If you followed the steps correctly so far, you should see the following screen:

To create a new repository in GitHub Desktop, start by clicking “Create a New Repository on your Hard Drive…”

Let’s name our repositorycodecademy-git-test.

For the local path, try to choose an easily accessible location, such as your Desktop. Also, make sure to check “Initialize this repository with a README” since we will be modifying the README file in this tutorial. Your screen should look like this:

Once you’re ready, click “Create Repository.”

Congratulations! You just learned how to create a new Git repository using GitHub Desktop. You should now see this:

On the top bar, notice that our current repository,codecademy-git-test, is shown. Next to that, our current branch, thedefault branch, is shown. This repository is currently available only on our local machine. To publish it to GitHub, let’s click “Publish repository.”

Now when you navigate to your GitHub profile ongithub.com, you should see your newly created repository listed there:

Working with commits in GitHub desktop

Now that you know how to create a repository in GitHub Desktop, let’s talk about commits. A commit tells Git that you made some changes to files in your repository and you want to record those changes.

To make our first commit, we first need to modify one of the files in our repository.

Navigate to thecodecademy-git-testfolder on your Desktop (or wherever you chose to locate it). You’ll notice that the only file contained in this folder is a README.md file.

Open this file with your preferred text or code editor and write a personalized message. For instance, we can write the following:

Once you have finished your edits, save the README file and return to the GitHub Desktop application. You’ll notice that GitHub Desktop has already recognized the changes made to your file.

To commit these changes, we should first write a commit message on the bottom left of the screen. In this example, “Update README.md” is an appropriate commit message.

When we’re ready to commit, we can simply click “Commit to main.”

Congratulations! You just learned how to perform a Git commit using GitHub Desktop.

Your commit is currently local to your computer. If you want the changes to the README file to show on GitHub, you must click “Push origin” on the next screen:

Now when you navigate to yourcodecademy-git-testrepository ongithub.com, you should see your updated README file:

Fetching updates with GitHub desktop

When you collaborate with other people on a repository, you will want to see what everyone is working on and update your files with the most up-to-date changes.

In Git, fetching is the process of updating your files with the most recent changes. Luckily, GitHub Desktop makes fetching changes easy.

Let’s suppose that someone made an update to our README file from the previous example. The README file now looks like this:

In order to fetch these changes in GitHub Desktop, we can simply click the “Fetch origin” button:

Next, you should click “Pull origin” so that the changes are reflected in the files on your local machine:

Now, navigate to thecodecademy-git-testfolder on your Desktop (or wherever you chose to locate it). If you open the README file, you will notice that the changes made to the file are correctly shown:

Cloning a repository with GitHub desktop

Cloning in Git is a way to download a Git project from an online repository to your own computer. Cloning a repository is easy to do with GitHub Desktop.

First, we need a repository to clone. For this tutorial, we’ll clone Codecademy’sdatasetsrepository. You can find this repositoryhere.

Click the “Code” button at the top right and then click “Open with GitHub Desktop” to clone and open the repository with GitHub Desktop:

Next, click “Choose…” to select a local path where you want to clone the repository. When you’re done, click “Clone” to clone the repository:

That’s it! The repository should now be cloned on your computer.

Conclusion

We covered quite a bit in this article. We learned:

• A version control system helps manage files and track changes in projects. It’s like a Google Doc – for coders.
• The difference between Git and GitHub:Gitis a widely used version control system that lets you manage and keep track of your code.GitHubis a cloud-based hosting service that lets you manage your Git repositories. With GitHub, you can back up your personal files, share your code, and collaborate with others.
• Basic functions in Git includecommit,fetch, andclone. We usecommitto update our default branch,fetchto update our local repository with the updates from the default branch, andcloneto save a respository to our local computer.
• We can interact with Git without the command line using the GitHub Desktop interface.

You now have a better grasp of how to how to store, update and share your code using Git and GitHub Desktop! Check out ourLearn Git & GitHub courseto discover more Git commands and GitHub features.

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