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I have previously forked other people's repos on GitHub, and I have noticed that issues stay with the original repo, and that I can't file issues on the forked repo.

I now have the following task. I am working for a small business where development was being done by one of the principals on his personal account. He has amicably left the project, and we would like to migrate that project away from his personal account to a new "role" account on GitHub.

I would naturally fork the repo, in order to preserve the code history, but then I'll end up with a repo where we can't file new issues, which is quite undesirable.

How can I make a copy of this original repo into our new account, ideally still preserving code history, but be able to file new issues within this new account?

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  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because support for various products and services should be directed toward the appropriate support channels.
    – Thomas Owens ♦
    Aug 26, 2018 at 17:57
  • 1
    @ThomasOwens Perhaps you could link to an appropriate support forum? I personally found this question (and its answer) very helpful.
    – Marlen T. B.
    Dec 20, 2019 at 6:00
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    Disagree with closing this question: look at the answer. It turns out to be something possible to do without product support involvement! Great use of a stackexchange site question.
    – WestCoastProjects
    Jan 18, 2021 at 14:24

3 Answers 3

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After a quick test, it is possible to attach an issue to your own fork of a repo. Here is what I did :

  • Fork a repo
  • Go to the Settings page of your fork.
  • Check the box next to Issues

You can now file issues on your own fork and they will not be placed in the main repo.

enter image description here

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  • 2
    If you know what to do, sure. Why isn't it on by default?
    – Chaim Eliyah
    Nov 19, 2017 at 23:35
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    @ChaimEliyah Because most forks on Github are made to create pull requests. It's important to make sure that bug reports end up in the original project, not in the clones where they would likely just be ignored.
    – Marc Schütz
    Jan 24, 2018 at 12:01
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    Oh my fork, Settings doesn't have an Issues checkbox any longer
    – Wayne Walker
    Oct 25, 2020 at 15:26
  • @WayneWalker That's weird, mine does - just enabled it with that checkbox today...
    – ReinstateMonica3167040
    Jun 4, 2021 at 13:47
  • The issues checkbox is missing for me, also: permissions issue? Or to do with when the repo was forked?
    – Tom Hillman
    Jul 8, 2022 at 9:54
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There is also the option to transfer (ownership of) a repository from one account to another (e.g. from an ex-employee to an 'organization' account).

  • The "Transfer Ownership" button is at the bottom of the Settings page of the repository, in the "Danger Zone" section.
  • The current owner of the repository must have administrative privileges to the destination organization (though this could just be temporary).
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This is an ancient question, and I would favor the approach that David P presents.

One more option is to remember that a local Git repository is an entire repository, complete with code history. You could just push it as another repository on GitHub, such that GitHub would have no idea the 2 were related. You still see your entire commit history.

This approach would cause you to loose any issue tracking history you have though. David P's approach is superior to mine, IMO.

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