git clone, explained

How to download any project from GitHub or other git driven on-line repositories?

Tom Parandyk
Nov 3 · 4 min read

This is a mac tutorial

Did you ever wonder what do those black windows do when looking at your developer’s screens?

Would you like to know how to download a project from GitHub like a pro?

Here’s git clone explained.

An online repository is often called “remote” and your computer “local”.

You will hear your dev team use those terms often. Now you know!

Check out this post if want to know what is git and how engineers work with it on daily basis:

Also, ☝️that post has git installation commands in case if you never installed git before on your computer.

Play time 🕹

You should see:

Terminal App opened

😎 INSTANT XP BOOST: Get iTerm2. It’s a free terminal app for pros. Just get it, you will never use the full power of it, but it will impress your engineers. They will be like, oh, you use iTerm2, nice.


2. Open any random GitHub repository, like this one:

Click to open a more or less random repo

You should see:


3. Click green button “Clone or download”

You should see:

and now click “copy” icon next to the weird looking path


4. Go back to your Terminal app, paste the path (command ⌘+v), and press Return.

You should see and error:

Congrats 🎉 You’ve done something wrong. Get used to it.

Now, time to fix it.

Welcome to the creative notion of engineering! 😄

In Terminal write git clone with space at the end and now paste the path

You should see GitHub asking for your password:


6. If you don’t have a GitHub account yet, don’t be a weirdo, get one. It’s free and mighty powerful!

Go and get your GitHub account

Now you can call yourself “Pickle Rick”, if you’re into nicknames…

Congrats 🎉 You are a geek.

Well, sorry. Few more steps. Stop crying!


7. Generate your SSH key. You most likely don’t have one yet and it will help you contribute later on without jumping through many hoops. Do it. It’s worth the trouble.

Go to the Terminal and open a new tab (command ⌘+t) and paste:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

Replace your_email@example.com by your real email 😇. Press Return.

The process will start. You should see this:

Now, press Return.

Next, create your password, but look out, you won’t see the characters — a jaw-dropping level of security.

Return. Repeat. Return.


8. Go to Finder. Search for “id_rsa.pub” file or go to your home folder > .shh

Open “id_rsa.pub” file in TextEdit App.

Select everything (command ⌘+a) and copy it.


9. Head to GitHub > Settings (click your user avatar) > SSH and GPG keys

Click “New SSH key”. You should see this:

Paste the key. Name it. Add it. Celebrate 🎉


10. Go back to Terminal. Repeat step 4.

😎 INSTANT XP BOOST: Press arrow up on your keyboard to go back to the previous command. Press it again. Nice.

You should see this:

Press Return. Put your password.

What’s done is done.

You’ve cloned it ⭐️

If you write ls you should see this:

Folder docs is now on your laptop as a git repository.



👏 if you find it useful

techforall

Helping product owners and designers make sense out of the enigneering mumbo jumbo.

Tom Parandyk

Written by

My goal is to simplify software development so that more people who find it hard to break into technology space have a chance for success. #techforall

techforall

Helping product owners and designers make sense out of the enigneering mumbo jumbo.

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