How to install and use Git on Windows

By default, Git is installed on Linux and macOS computers as a command line option. However, Microsoft Windows does not include a Git command. Below are the steps on how to install and use Git and GitHub on Microsoft Windows.

Installing Git on Windows

1. Open the Git website.
2. Click the Download link to download Git. The download should automatically start.
3. Once downloaded, start the installation from the browser or the download folder.
4. In the Select Components window, leave all default options checked and check any other additional components you want installed.
5. Next, in the Choosing the default editor, used by Git unless you’re familiar with Vim we highly recommend using a text editor you’re comfortable using. If Notepad++ is installed, we suggest using it as your editor. If Notepad++ is not installed, you can cancel the install and install Notepad++ and then restart the GitHub install.
6. Next, in the Adjusting your PATH environment, we recommend keeping the default Use Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software as shown below. This option allows you to use Git from either Git Bash or the Windows Command Prompt.

1. Next, we recommend leaving the default selected as Use OpenSSH.
2. Next, in Choosing HTTPS transport backend, leave the default Use the OpenSSL library selected.
3. In the Configuring the line ending conversions, select Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings unless you need other line endings for your work.
4. In the Configuring the terminal emulator to use with Git Bash window, select Use MinTTY (the default terminal of MSYS2).
5. On the Configuring extra options window, leave the default options checked unless you need symbolic links.
6. Click the Install button
7. Once completed, you can check the option to Launch Git Bash if you want to open a Bash command line or, if you selected the Windows command line, run Git from the Windows command line.

We highly recommend you use Git from the command line and not use a GUI interface. You’ll only be using the command line to interface with Git to manage the files. Editing can still be done through a text editor or IDE of your choice. If you’re new to the command line, you can find help with navigating the Windows command line and Linux (Bash) through the links below.

Configuring and connecting to a remote repository

In our example, we’re using GitHub as a storage for our remote repository. Below are the steps on how you can connect to a GitHub repository. If you are new to GitHub, see: How to create a GitHub repository.

1. From the command line, move to the directory you want to contain your Git repository.

• How to change a directory or open a folder.

1. Type the following command to configure your Git username, where will be your GitHub username.

1. After entering the above command, you’ll be returned to the command prompt. Next, enter your e-mail address by typing the following command, where is your e-mail address.

1. Once the above steps are completed, you’ll be ready to connect to a remote repository. To find the repository address, go to a repository on GitHub and click the Clone or download repository link to get the address. For example, we’ve created a repository called «example» at https://github.com/Computerhope/example.git address. Copy the address to your clipboard.
2. Once copied go back to the command line and type the following command, where is the address you copied. To paste that address into the command line right-click in the command line window and click paste.

1. Once the Git repository is created, you’ll have a new directory in your current directory with the name of the Git repository.
2. Once the Git remote repository is cloned to your local repository, a new folder in the current directory should appear with the name of the Git repository. For example, in our «example» Git we would have a new directory called «example». Use the cd command to change into the new directory.
3. Once in the new directory, type the following command to list the remote repositories.

1. If successful, the output is «origin,» which is a special name that refers to the remote repository.
2. To see the aliases (URL or path), type the following command.

Running each of the above commands give you an output similar to what is shown in our example below.

Now that you’ve connected to a remote repository on GitHub you’re ready to start working on the files and pushing and pulling files as you update the files.

Working in your local repository and pushing files

After following the above steps and cloning a remote repository, you can work on the files as you normally would. You can create new files or edit existing files from the command line or your favorite text editor. Below, are the steps of creating a new file, pushing that file, editing an existing file, and pushing the update.

Creating a new file and pushing to remote repository

1. Create a new file in the Git directory by typing the following command from either the Bash or Windows command line. The following command opens and creates a file called example.txt in Notepad. In Git Bash, you could also use the touch command to create a blank new file and then type «start » to open the file in your favorite text editor.

1. In the text editor, enter some text into the file and save and exit the file.
2. Back at the command line type the following command to get the current status of your branch and untracked files.

1. Git displays a window similar to the example shown below, showing that the file we created is new and untracked by Git.

1. We’ll now want to add this file to Git to be tracked by typing the following command. If your file is not named «example.txt,» you’d want to change the text to the name of your file.

1. After entering the above command, the file is added as a new file also known as staging. Typing git status again shows you in green that the file is a new file that is ready to be committed.
2. Next, type the following command to commit the changes made in the local workspace to the local repository. In the example below, our notes «First example» should be notes that would make sense everyone working on your project.

You can also type git commit with no additional tags or options. However, when doing this it opens a vim like editor that can be difficult for those not familiar with the vim to use. If you type this command press «i» to enter insert mode and type the notes for the commit on the first line, press Esc, and then type «:wq» to save, exit, and commit. We suggest using the above command because it’s easier for more people to use.

1. Finally, now that changes are moved from your workspace into your local repository it’s ready to be pushed to the remote repository. Type the following command to push all changes to the remote repository.

If you want to follow the progress, you can type git status again to see the current status. You can also type git log to see a log of changes.

You’ll be asked for your GitHub username and password if your computer has not logged in to Git from the command line.

Once the file is pushed, it appears in your GitHub remote repository and is available to everyone else who’re working with the same repository.

Modifying a file and pushing to remote repository

1. Edit and modify one or more files in your Git.
2. Type git status to see the status of all the files not yet committed from the workspace to the local repository.
3. Type the following command to add all files. The single period indicates that you want all files to be added to the local repository. Some people may also use git add -A to add all.

You can also use wildcards instead of a period. For example, if you wanted to add all text files you could type *.txt instead of a single period to only add text files.

1. Once the files are added, type the following command to commit. Change the notes to apply to your commit.

1. Finally, type git push to push the commit to the remote repository.

If you’re working with a lot of other people, we’d recommend you pull (explained below) before committing. If your local repository is not the same as the remote repository (excluding your new changes), the commit fails. For example, if someone has added new files to the remote repository while you’ve been working and you try commit, it fails until you pull.

Pulling or fetching updates from the remote repository

If it’s been awhile since you’ve committed any work, perform the git pull command to get the latest updates from the remote repository and merge them into your local repository. By pulling updates from a repository before committing, it verifies your local repository and the remote repository are the same and prevents merge conflicts.

To get all changes without merging, run the git fetch command to grab all of the latest updates from the remote repository without merging changes.

How to deal with a Git merge conflict

When multiple people are working with the same files, you’re going to encounter merge conflicts. When a conflict occurs, Git modifies your local files and it is up to you to manually fix the files with the conflicts.

Use the git status command to see the status and merge conflict information.

Open the file with the conflict to start correcting the errors. In the example file below, we had a text file with one line of text and in the local repository we added the text «update1» to the file. However, during the same time, the remote repository file was modified and added «update2″ to the file on the same line. Git marks conflicts with » >>>>>> » to mark the end.

To resolve this merge conflict, we would need to decide what text we wanted to keep, update, or remove. In this example, we want to keep «update1» and «update2» in the order they’re listed so we would only need to remove the Git markings to make the file resemble the following example.

If you’re working with a big file, it’s a good idea to search the file for «HEAD» because there may be more than one conflict.

Once the changes are made in the file, we could save the file and then perform the following git commands to update the fixes.

The example given in this merge conflict is a very basic example. When dealing with a file with more than a few lines of text or big sections of code, merge conflict can get a lot more confusing. To make it easier to deal with merge conflicts, you can use the command git mergetool to use a merge tool, such as WinMerge or another popular merge tool.

Creating a Git branch

Creating a branch allows you to create a duplicate of the master (trunk) and make several updates without affecting the master. For example, when developing a program if a big fix was need that could take weeks or months, a branch could be created for that fix. Once you’ve fixed the bug, you could merge your branch back into the master.

To create a branch in your local repository, follow the steps below.

1. In the Git master directory, type the following command, where » » is the name of the new branch name. For example, we could call the branch «examplebranch».

1. Next, type the following command to switch to the branch.

1. After entering the above command, the prompt (in Git Bash) changes from «master» to the branch name to indicate you’re working in a branch.
2. From this point, you can continue to use Git and modify the files how you have in the past.
3. To see all available branches, you can use the git branch command. For example, typing git branch displays your local repository branches. Typing git branch -a displays all local and remote repositories.
4. If you need to push the branch to the remote repository, you can run the following command.

1. Finally, if you need to switch back to the master branch, you can type the following command.

How to merge a branch back into the master

After completing your work, you’ll want to merge it back into the master or another branch by following the steps below.

1. Move into the branch you want to merge into. For example, if you wanted to merge back into the master, type the following command.

1. Once in the master, type the following command to merge the branch.

1. Once the merge is performed, add the files.
2. Next, commit the changes.
3. Once merged and committed, push the merge by typing the following command. If you get conflicts during the merge, see our how to deal with merge conflicts section.

How to delete a local and remote branch

If, after merging a branch you no longer want to keep the local or remote branch, you can perform the following commands.

To delete the local branch, type the following command.

To delete the remote branch, type the following command.

1.6 Getting Started — First-Time Git Setup

First-Time Git Setup

Now that you have Git on your system, you’ll want to do a few things to customize your Git environment. You should have to do these things only once on any given computer; they’ll stick around between upgrades. You can also change them at any time by running through the commands again.

Git comes with a tool called git config that lets you get and set configuration variables that control all aspects of how Git looks and operates. These variables can be stored in three different places:

[path]/etc/gitconfig file: Contains values applied to every user on the system and all their repositories. If you pass the option —system to git config , it reads and writes from this file specifically. Because this is a system configuration file, you would need administrative or superuser privilege to make changes to it.

/.config/git/config file: Values specific personally to you, the user. You can make Git read and write to this file specifically by passing the —global option, and this affects all of the repositories you work with on your system.

config file in the Git directory (that is, .git/config ) of whatever repository you’re currently using: Specific to that single repository. You can force Git to read from and write to this file with the —local option, but that is in fact the default. Unsurprisingly, you need to be located somewhere in a Git repository for this option to work properly.

Each level overrides values in the previous level, so values in .git/config trump those in [path]/etc/gitconfig .

On Windows systems, Git looks for the .gitconfig file in the $HOME directory ( C:\Users\$USER for most people). It also still looks for [path]/etc/gitconfig , although it’s relative to the MSys root, which is wherever you decide to install Git on your Windows system when you run the installer. If you are using version 2.x or later of Git for Windows, there is also a system-level config file at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Git\config on Windows XP, and in C:\ProgramData\Git\config on Windows Vista and newer. This config file can only be changed by git config -f as an admin.

You can view all of your settings and where they are coming from using:

Your Identity

The first thing you should do when you install Git is to set your user name and email address. This is important because every Git commit uses this information, and it’s immutably baked into the commits you start creating:

Again, you need to do this only once if you pass the —global option, because then Git will always use that information for anything you do on that system. If you want to override this with a different name or email address for specific projects, you can run the command without the —global option when you’re in that project.

Many of the GUI tools will help you do this when you first run them.

Your Editor

Now that your identity is set up, you can configure the default text editor that will be used when Git needs you to type in a message. If not configured, Git uses your system’s default editor.

If you want to use a different text editor, such as Emacs, you can do the following:

On a Windows system, if you want to use a different text editor, you must specify the full path to its executable file. This can be different depending on how your editor is packaged.

In the case of Notepad++, a popular programming editor, you are likely to want to use the 32-bit version, since at the time of writing the 64-bit version doesn’t support all plug-ins. If you are on a 32-bit Windows system, or you have a 64-bit editor on a 64-bit system, you’ll type something like this:

Vim, Emacs and Notepad++ are popular text editors often used by developers on Unix-based systems like Linux and macOS or a Windows system. If you are using another editor, or a 32-bit version, please find specific instructions for how to set up your favorite editor with Git in git config core.editor commands.

You may find, if you don’t setup your editor like this, you get into a really confusing state when Git attempts to launch it. An example on a Windows system may include a prematurely terminated Git operation during a Git initiated edit.

Your default branch name

By default Git will create a branch called master when you create a new repository with git init . From Git version 2.28 onwards, you can set a different name for the initial branch.

To set main as the default branch name do:

Checking Your Settings

If you want to check your configuration settings, you can use the git config —list command to list all the settings Git can find at that point:

You may see keys more than once, because Git reads the same key from different files ( [path]/etc/gitconfig and

/.gitconfig , for example). In this case, Git uses the last value for each unique key it sees.

You can also check what Git thinks a specific key’s value is by typing git config :

Since Git might read the same configuration variable value from more than one file, it’s possible that you have an unexpected value for one of these values and you don’t know why. In cases like that, you can query Git as to the origin for that value, and it will tell you which configuration file had the final say in setting that value: