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Desktop application

GitHub Desktop multi-repository

Electron TypeScript React Linux · Windows · macOS MIT

GitHub Desktop is GitHub's open-source visual Git client — built on Electron and written in TypeScript with React. It makes day-to-day Git simpler: commits, branches, history, pull requests and conflict resolution in a clean interface, with no commands to memorise.

Officially, GitHub does not distribute the app for Linux. This fork compiles GitHub Desktop from source and packages it for all three systems — and adds the reason the fork exists: a multi-repository panel, with every repository of yours on one screen.

Multi-repository panel

Every repository on one screen, flagging the ones with a pending commit or behind their remote.

Batch pull and push

Tick several repositories and sync three at a time, with a result for each one.

Visual commits

Stage, commit, branch and merge without the command line.

Side-by-side diff

See exactly what changed before you confirm.

Pull requests

Open and follow PRs and the status of their checks.

Native installer

.deb, .rpm, AppImage and .pkg.tar.zst on Linux; .exe and .msi on Windows; .dmg on macOS.

What changed

The most recent releases, taken from the project's own changelog.

  1. v0.4.1 current
    • Packaging also produces the Arch package (.pkg.tar.zst), converting the .deb on the build host, with dependencies mapped to Arch names.
    • Which Linux formats to build is now selectable, so a container can build only the .rpm.
  2. v0.4.0
    • Batch pull and push over the repositories you tick, three at a time, with a result on each row instead of one verdict at the end.
    • A status report screen — how many repositories are waiting to commit, behind, ahead or up to date — with the whole thing copyable as text.
    • Every installer now carries both version numbers in its filename, so a .deb and a .dmg from the same build are recognisable as such.
  3. v0.3.0
    • Select-all in the batch clone, with a third state for a partial selection, and honouring the search filter.
    • A repository that already exists in the target folder is skipped with a banner, instead of an error popup that stopped the whole batch.
  4. v0.2.0
    • Selective clone: list any user's public repositories and clone several of them into one folder in a single action.
  5. v0.1.0
    • The multi-repository panel — every repository on one screen, flagging the ones with something pending.

The fork version and the upstream GitHub Desktop release it is based on are different numbers. The entries above are the fork's.

Download Source on GitHub

Two versions, and they are not the same thing: fork 0.4.1 is this fork's own version and GitHub Desktop 3.6.3 is the GitHub Desktop release it is based on. Both appear in the About screen.

Auto-update is off on purpose: GitHub's official feed was overwriting the fork's build. Updating means downloading the new version.

A community project, with no official affiliation to GitHub, Inc. MIT licence, inherited from desktop/desktop. Trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners.