githubtakeout

Archive Git Repos and Gists from GitHub

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• Copyright (c) 2015-2025 Corey Goldberg
• License: MIT
• Development: GitHub
• Download/Install: PyPI

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About:

githubtakeout is a data export tool for archiving Git repositories hosted on GitHub. It clones a user's repos and creates an archive of each.

It supports public/private repos and public/secret gists. By default, it doesn't save commit history or branches (.git directory), or Gist repositories (both can be enabled with command line options).

When you run the program, archives of your repos will be saved in a directory named backups inside your current working directory, unless a different location is specified using the --dir option.

Archives are saved in compressed zip format (.zip) by default, but can also be saved as tarballs (.tar.gz) using the --format=tar option.

Requirements:

• Python 3.12+
• Git 1.7+
• Python packages:
  • GitPython
  • PyGithub

Installation:

Install from PyPI:

pip install githubtakeout

Authentication:

By default, githubtakeout will only retrieve an account's public repos. To access private repos and secret gists, you need to authenticate.

First, you must create a personal access token on Github (either a fine-grained or classic personal access token). Once you have a token, you can set the GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable:

$ export GITHUB_TOKEN=<auth token created on GitHub>

If you prefer to be prompted for your token each time you run the program, use the --token argument.

CLI Options:

usage: githubtakeout [-h] [--dir DIR] [--format FORMAT] [--gists] [--history] [--list] [--token] username

positional arguments:
  username         GitHub username

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  --dir DIR        output directory
  --format FORMAT  archive format (tar, zip)
  --gists          include gists
  --history        include commit history and branches (.git directory)
  --list           list repos only
  --token          prompt for auth toke

Usage Examples:

Install from PyPI with pipx, Run:

pipx install githubtakeout
githubtakeout <github username>

Create/Activate Virtual Environment, Install from PyPI, Run:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install githubtakeout
githubtakeout <github username>

Clone Repo, Create/Activate Virtual Environment, Install from Source, Run:

git clone git@github.com:cgoldberg/githubtakeout.git
cd ./githubtakeout
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install .
githubtakeout <github username>