Introduction
GitHub Desktop is a free, open source application that helps you to work with code hosted on GitHub or other Git hosting services. With GitHub Desktop, you can perform Git commands, such as committing and pushing changes, in a graphical user interface, rather than using the command line. For more information, see About GitHub Desktop.
This guide will help you get started with GitHub Desktop by setting up the application, authenticating your account, configuring basic settings, and introducing the fundamentals of managing projects with GitHub Desktop. You will be able to use GitHub Desktop to collaborate on projects and connect to remote repositories after working through this guide.
You might find it helpful to have a basic understanding of Git and GitHub before getting started with GitHub Desktop. For more information, see the following articles.
GitHub Desktop is an open source project. You can see the roadmap, contribute to the project, or open an issue to provide feedback or feature requests. For more information, see the desktop/desktop repository.
Part 1: Installing and authenticating
You can install GitHub Desktop on any supported operating system. For more information, see Supported operating systems for GitHub Desktop.
To install GitHub Desktop, visit the download page for GitHub Desktop. For more information, see Installing GitHub Desktop.
After you have installed GitHub Desktop, you can authenticate the application with your account on GitHub or GitHub Enterprise. Authenticating allows you to connect to remote repositories on GitHub or GitHub Enterprise.