Administrator Updated on February 8, 2023 Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. GitHub is a web-based hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system. When you are following this blog, you can learn how to download files from GitHub.
GitHub is the place for people to share source code for all types of applications ranging from a single file to hundreds of files. GitHub allows people to work together on the same team or project. It is also an open-sourced platform where people can view your repositories to see your works.
As a tool for software development, it has many functions that most people do not need which makes it complicated. It can be confusing for people to download and get access to content. To download a file or repository from GitHub, you can download the files in various ways.
Raw mode
To download a particular single file, you can go with the raw mode. Raw mode is an easy way to download single files. To download the file:
- First, click the file you want to download. There, you will see a “raw” button. Click on it.
- Then right-click on your mouse on the page and click “Save as” or press Ctrl + S to save the file as a text document (.txt file).
Cons: This method is undoable if there are many files.
Cloning a respiratory
You can also download files by cloning from a repository on your desktop. You can have multiple files from a repository which is not possible in the raw mode. You can follow these steps.
- First, you must have a Git client installed on your computer. If you don’t have it, then download it from https://desktop.github.com and install it.
- To clone a repository, you will need a complete repository URL. Go to the “Code(Download)[labeled green]” on the right side of the repository webpage. Click on the “Copy” button.
- Go to the Command Prompt. First, navigate the folder where you want the clone of the repository. Type “git clone” and then paste the link copied earlier.
- Click “Enter” to start the cloning.
- Go to the menu of the desktop interface and select File>Clone repository to browse to the destination folder, paste the URL, and select “Clone” to complete the process.
The download button
It is easier compared to the other methods. You can download the files without even having to install the GitHub application and also have multiple files at the same time. To download the files, you must go to the repository section. The button will only show up if you are in the repository section.
- To access the repository, click on the “code” on the top left section.
- Then click on the “Code[labeled green]” on the right section of the webpage.
- You will get a link with many options. There is a link, an option for opening with the desktop interface and ZIP file. Click the “Download ZIP” option.
- Download the file to your preferred storage and extract it from the zip format. You will have all the files at your access.
Summary: Download from GitHub
- Go to the project’s page on GitHub.
- Click green button “clone or download”.
- Find the URL by clicking the clipboard button next to the URL for cloning.
- Open the terminal.
- Change the current working directory to the location where you want the cloned directory to be made.
