Detaching a fork

You can disconnect a repository from its fork network by leaving the network or manually deleting the fork and recreating it without any connection to the original.

Who can use this feature?

People with admin access for a forked repository can delete the forked repository.

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Manually Leaving the fork network

To turn your fork into a standalone repository, you can clone the fork, use the clone to create a new repository, and then delete the fork removing the connection to the original network.

  1. Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.

  2. Create a bare clone of the fork.

    git clone --bare https://github.com/EXAMPLE-USER/FORK.git

  3. Delete the forked repository. For more information, see Deleting a repository.

    Warning

    Deleting a fork will permanently delete any associated pull requests and configurations. This action cannot be undone.

  4. Create a new repository with the same name in the same location. For more information, see Creating a new repository.

  5. Mirror-push the repository back to the same remote URL.

    git --git-dir FORK.git push --mirror https://github.com/EXAMPLE-USER/FORK.git

  6. Remove temporary local clone you created earlier.

    rm -rf FORK.git

For more information, see our support page on forks.