GitHub Guide For Beginners (With GitHub SSH Setup)

This guide will walk you through:

1. Creating a GitHub account

2. Hiding your email

3. Creating an SSH key and connecting it to GitHub

4. Forking someone else’s repository

5. Cloning it to your Desktop folder on your local machine

📝 Step 1: Create a GitHub Account

1. Go to https://github.com

2. Click on Sign up

3. Enter the required info:

   • Username

   • Email address

   • Password

4. Confirm your email via the link sent to you

🔒 Step 2: Make Your Email Private on GitHub

1. Click your profile picture → Settings

2. Go to Emails in the sidebar

3. Check these options:

   • ✅ Keep my email address private

     • Store your email address “123456789+YourUserName@users.noreply.github.com”

   • ✅ Block command line pushes that expose my email

💻 Step 3: Install Git (if not already installed)

• macOS: Open Terminal and run:

git --version

• If not installed, you’ll be prompted to install Git.

• Windows: Download and install Git from https://git-scm.com

🔐 Step 4: Generate SSH Key and Register with GitHub

① Open Terminal or Git Bash and run:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "123456789+YourUserName@users.noreply.github.com"

• Replace 123456789+YourUserName@users.noreply.github.com with the email you used for GitHub

• Press Enter to accept default file location

• You can press Enter to skip passphrase (optional)

② View and copy the public key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

• Copy the full output.

③ Add SSH key to GitHub:

1. Go to GitHub → Settings → SSH and GPG keys

2. Click New SSH key

3. Title: e.g. “My Laptop”

4. Paste your copied key

5. Click Add SSH key

⚙️ Step 5: Configure Your Git User Info

git config --global user.name "Your GitHub Username" 
git config --global user.email "123456789+YourUserName@users.noreply.github.com"

Tip: If your email is private, use your 123456789+YourUserName@users.noreply.github.com GitHub-provided email (See Step2)

🔁 Step 6: Fork a Repository on GitHub

1. Find the repository you want to fork

2. Click the Fork button (top-right)

3. It will create a copy under your GitHub account

📥 Step 7: Clone Your Fork to Your Desktop (Using SSH)

① Go to your forked repository on GitHub

② Click the Code button → Choose SSH → Copy the SSH URL

Example: git@github.com:yourusername/reponame.git

③ Open Terminal and run:

cd desktop
git clone git@github.com:yourusername/reponame.git

If you initially cloned using HTTPS and want to switch to SSH later, please follow the steps below to make the change.

🔄 Change the GitHub Repository Remote URL from HTTPS to SSH

✅ Check Your Current Remote URL First, confirm whether your current remote URL is using HTTPS:

git remote -v


#Example output (if using HTTPS):
origin  https://github.com/your-username/your-repo.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/your-username/your-repo.git (push)

🔁 Change Remote URL to SSH If you’re using HTTPS, switch to SSH by running the following command:

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:your-username/your-repo.git

Replace your-username and your-repo with your actual GitHub username and repository name.

For example, if your username is BabelFish and the repository is hello-world, you would run:

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:BabelFish/hello-world.git

✅ Verify the Change To make sure the change was successful, run:

git remote -v

#You should see something like:
origin  git@github.com:BabelFish/hello-world.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:BabelFish/hello-world.git (push)

✅ Done!

You now have:

• GitHub account ✔️

• Email privacy set ✔️

• SSH key authentication set up ✔️

• A fork of the repo under your account ✔️

• The repo cloned to your Desktop ✔️