139

I have previously forked other people's repos on GitHub, and I have noticed that issues stay with the original repo, and that I can't file issues on the forked repo.

I now have the following task. I am working for a small business where development was being done by one of the principals on his personal account. He has amicably left the project, and we would like to migrate that project away from his personal account to a new "role" account on GitHub.

I would naturally fork the repo, in order to preserve the code history, but then I'll end up with a repo where we can't file new issues, which is quite undesirable.

How can I make a copy of this original repo into our new account, ideally still preserving code history, but be able to file new issues within this new account?

Martijn Pieters
  • 14,499
  • 10
  • 57
  • 58
Tom Swirly
  • 1,516
  • 2
  • 9
  • 7
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because support for various products and services should be directed toward the appropriate support channels. – Thomas Owens Aug 26 '18 at 17:57
  • 1
    @ThomasOwens Perhaps you could link to an appropriate support forum? I personally found this question (and its answer) very helpful. – Marlen T. B. Dec 20 '19 at 06:00
  • 3
    Disagree with closing this question: look at the answer. It turns out to be something possible to do without product support involvement! Great use of a stackexchange site question. – WestCoastProjects Jan 18 '21 at 14:24

3 Answers3

185

After a quick test, it is possible to attach an issue to your own fork of a repo. Here is what I did :

  • Fork a repo
  • Go to the Settings page of your fork.
  • Check the box next to Issues

You can now file issues on your own fork and they will not be placed in the main repo.

enter image description here

marco-fiset
  • 8,721
  • 9
  • 35
  • 46
15

There is also the option to transfer (ownership of) a repository from one account to another (e.g. from an ex-employee to an 'organization' account).

  • The "Transfer Ownership" button is at the bottom of the Settings page of the repository, in the "Danger Zone" section.
  • The current owner of the repository must have administrative privileges to the destination organization (though this could just be temporary).
David P
  • 251
  • 2
  • 5
3

This is an ancient question, and I would favor the approach that David P presents.

One more option is to remember that a local Git repository is an entire repository, complete with code history. You could just push it as another repository on GitHub, such that GitHub would have no idea the 2 were related. You still see your entire commit history.

This approach would cause you to loose any issue tracking history you have though. David P's approach is superior to mine, IMO.

juanpaco
  • 131
  • 3