How to download file from github

Let's start by walking through the basics. Here comes the easy part: make yourself a GitHub account signing up on the front page. After completing the form, GitHub will sign you in and take you to your empty news feed.

In the middle of the page, you'll see the boot camp pictured to the right. We're going to go through it to set up your account and, later, create your first repository.

Click on 'Set Up Git' to get started. GitHub exists because of a version control application called git. The site is based around how git works, and git is pretty old.

It runs via the command line and has no fancy graphical user interface. Since it's made to manage code you wrote, this shouldn't sound too scary. Of course, as previously mentioned, GitHub did make wonderful software to allow you to use their service without the command line but that won't help you too much unless you know the basics.

Git works by reading a local code repository just a folder containing code for your project on your computer and the mirroring that code elsewhere in this case, GitHub's servers. Initially we'll commit i. As you continue to work on your code, you'll simply commit changes. GitHub will then keep track of the changes you made, creating different versions of files so you can revert back to old ones if you want or just keep track of those changes for other reasons.

This is primarily why you'd want to use a version control system like git on your own, but additional benefits surface when using git to manage code with other people working on your project.

When multiple developers commit code with git, GitHub becomes a central repository where all the code that everyone's working on can stay in sync. You'll commit your changes, and other developers will pull them i. You'll do the same with their code.

Git makes this all happen, so you need to download the latest version and install it. On OS X, you'll just install the command line app. On Windows, you'll get a few more items. We'll discuss how they work in the next step. To set up git, you need to make your way into the command line. When you're ready, tell git your name like this:. You can put in any name you like, but afterwards you'll need to input your email and that email must be the email you used when signing up for GitHub:.

If, for whatever reason, you signed up for GitHub with the wrong email address, you'll need to change it. Now, to avoid always entering your login credentials and generating SSH keys, you'll want to install the credential helper so your passwords are cached. If you're on Windows, download it and install it.

You can use any web browser to download files. Use the search bar at the top of the page to find the file you want to download and the results will list repositories that match your search. You'll see this option on the right side of the browser. Once you click Releases , you can click to download the installer or the source code. If there is no Releases available, continue following these steps to download a file. You'll see this above the list of files within this repository next to a button to download all the files.

It'll open within GitHub in your web browser. You'll see this next to Blame and a monitor icon above the space where the file displays. Your file manager will open so you can select a name and location to save the file. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. You Might Also Like How to. How to. About This Article. Written by:. You can head to www. Once you have your account created, you can fork a public repository to your account.

Click the button. To verify, you can click on your profile icon in the navigation bar at the top-right, and then select the option that says Your Repositories. In your list of repositories, you should see the JavaScript 30 course codebase.

If the original project owner likes the change — and it works properly — it can be merged into the original codebase as production code. As you can see, downloading files and whole projects from Github is actually quite easy. In just a couple of minutes, you can have an entire project downloaded onto your computer, or even forked to your own Github account.

That said, unless the owner of the codebase checks a box otherwise, their codebase can be downloaded onto your computer, packed into a. Alternatively, you can easily clone a file or repository using a few simple commands on GitHub. A fork is simply your own copy of a repository.