Using multiple GitHub accounts on one machine

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have a personal GitHub account, an account for my own company, and one for each client I work with. They all live on the same laptop, and they all talk to github.com.

When having multiple accounts, you need to be careful about using the right SSH key and the right commit email address for each repository. But if you plan it right, you can make it so that Git does the right thing automatically, without you having to remember which account a repository belongs to.

In this blog post, I show the setup: one base directory per account, and no special URLs. I clone with the exact URL that GitHub puts on my clipboard.

Git on Wim Deblauwe

Using multiple GitHub accounts on one machine