How can I download a specific folder from a GitHub repo? #23087

osioke · 2017-10-06T12:15:54Z

osioke
Oct 6, 2017

How can I download a specific folder or directory from a remote Git repo hosted on GitHub? I only want just that a specific folder where the files for the front-end part of the app are kept, without having the other files as I don’t really need them.

Answered by AlMcKinlay

Oct 11, 2017

If you are willing to use git to do this, you can do a sparse checkout.

We are going to start by creating an empty git repo locally, and then add the repository we want as a remote. This allows us to easily just checkout the folder we want

mkdir directoryName
cd directoryName
git init
git remote add origin -f repoUrl

After that, we want to add the directory to

.git/info/sparse-checkout

(this is essentially the opposite of the gitignore file).

Then we can

git pull origin master

and it should download only the folder you want.

Obviously, this requires you to use git, but it shouldn’t bee too difficult to automate if it’s something you are doing often.

View full answer

AlMcKinlay · 2017-10-11T07:58:15Z

AlMcKinlay
Oct 11, 2017

If you are willing to use git to do this, you can do a sparse checkout.

We are going to start by creating an empty git repo locally, and then add the repository we want as a remote. This allows us to easily just checkout the folder we want

mkdir directoryName
cd directoryName
git init
git remote add origin -f repoUrl

After that, we want to add the directory to

.git/info/sparse-checkout

(this is essentially the opposite of the gitignore file).

Then we can

git pull origin master

and it should download only the folder you want.

Obviously, this requires you to use git, but it shouldn’t bee too difficult to automate if it’s something you are doing often.

3 replies

FarziBuilder Sep 20, 2023

I followed all the steps and then git pulled. But, it is just giving this. What should be the next step?

janleemans Sep 30, 2023

I disagree with this answer : although the visible structure of your folder only contains the partial check-out, the .git file that is created during the "git remote add" command is still the whole repository size ! So although this reduces the local git folder in size, this is not a solution for very large repo's. In my case I have a 1.2 GB repo, and I'm only working on a 6 MB folder ... but local size is still 1.2 GB.

ecxod Apr 14, 2024

THIS IS A HORRIBLE SOLUTION

before you modify .git/info/sparse-checkout
you must go git config core.sparseCheckout true
and after not forget to revert .git/info/sparse-checkout
and go git config core.sparseCheckout false

osioke · 2017-10-11T10:25:24Z

osioke
Oct 11, 2017
Author

Awesome! Thanks a lot, will definitely try this.

0 replies

ecyojaidan · 2017-10-25T21:51:48Z

ecyojaidan
Oct 25, 2017

I have a specific folder from a remote Git repo that I’ve hosted on GitHub. How can I download only that one specific folder?

0 replies

PN1019 · 2018-04-05T08:47:06Z

PN1019
Apr 5, 2018

@nadiajoyce Well this question is different mine is different, I want to download a specific folder locally not on a remote Git repo I think you misunderstood my question please check it once again.I totally understand that in order to maintain forum organized you have close my question but I request you to open again since my question is different from above question.

0 replies

lee-dohm · 2018-04-05T15:37:37Z

lee-dohm
Apr 5, 2018

If you look at the solution, it directly answers your question. The new topic you opened isn’t necessary and it is correct that people should be directed here.

0 replies

Gyumeijie · 2018-09-18T12:56:46Z

Gyumeijie
Sep 18, 2018

You can try github-files-fetcher, it is a command line tool which downloads a single folder or file from a GitHub repo.

Think a real scenario: you were visiting the following webpage page and wanna download the async subdirectory alone.

Selection_021.png1300×810 111 KB

With The github-files-fetcher, you should first copy the url of that page, which is https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/tree/master/examples/async, and then run the command below in command line:

fetcher --url=https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/tree/master/examples/async

1 reply

rulatir Jan 9, 2024

Unfortunately this requires node, so if you want to use it in a Dockerfile to selectively fetch some redistributables from various repos, you first need to install the whole gargantuan entirety of node as a dependency.

gaylonalfano · 2018-09-19T04:54:35Z

gaylonalfano
Sep 19, 2018

Thanks, @mcinkay, this was really helpful for someone who’s still learning how to use Git/GitHub. Could you elaborate on how exactly to do this part?

After that, we want to add the directory to

.git/info/sparse-checkout

(this is essentially the opposite of the gitignore file).

I’m essentially trying to download the Python-SQLite subfolder from the main code_snippets repo (see below), but I don’t know how exactly to add the directory to .git/info/sparse-checkout.

Python-SQLite subfolder:

https://github.com/CoreyMSchafer/code_snippets/tree/master/Python-SQLite

code_snippets main repo:

https://github.com/CoreyMSchafer/code_snippets

Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated!

0 replies

AlMcKinlay · 2018-09-19T09:59:06Z

AlMcKinlay
Sep 19, 2018

@gaylonalfano Edit the file and just put a line containing Python-SQLite The syntax is the same the gitignore file .

0 replies

mstmustisnt · 2019-01-29T09:10:12Z

mstmustisnt
Jan 29, 2019

It still downloads everything.

0 replies

krishsubra · 2019-02-10T16:39:02Z

krishsubra
Feb 10, 2019

Yep, it still downloads all

0 replies

krishsubra · 2019-02-10T17:03:04Z

krishsubra
Feb 10, 2019

Nope there is a change.

mkdir <dir>

cd <dir>

git init

git remote add origin -f <URL>

git config core.sparseCheckout true # enable this

cat >> .git/info/sparsecheckout

git pull origin master

Only your folder gets downloaded.

This was tested on 2.13.3.windows worked fine.

0 replies

yeezeus · 2019-06-06T19:07:32Z

yeezeus
Jun 6, 2019

For GitHub repos, you can clone any sub-directories of any GitHub repository (at any reference) using https://github.com/HR/github-clone

1 reply

Kamalabot Nov 26, 2022

yeezeus, this is a great solution. Saved me from downloading a lot of data, that I had no plan for using.
Just had to do Pip3 install github-clone
Following that with ghclone https://github.com/apache/spark/tree/master/data/mllib
Above command downloaded the mlib folder

weina2018 · 2019-07-03T13:08:14Z

weina2018
Jul 3, 2019

Hi Mclnkay,

I tried your command in the Bash (MacPro Terminal), am trying to pull/clone the specific folder from Github repo (Sub-folder under repo master folder) but it did not work, please advice, thank you

Alternatively, how would i be able to Copy-and-Paste a folder or file at local repo prior pull/clone its content-folder(or file) from remote Github? Thank you

Thanks, Weina

0 replies

chasedenecke · 2019-09-10T16:45:37Z

chasedenecke
Sep 10, 2019

To add to this comment (particularly if you want to turn this series of commands into a script), I would amend it as follows:

mkdir <dir>

cd <dir>

git init

git remote add origin -f <URL>

git config core.sparseCheckout true # enable this

echo “/absolute/path/to/folder” > .git/info/sparse-checkout # if you don’t start with root you are liable to download multiple folders wherever the name you specified is matched.

git pull origin master

0 replies

princeo911 · 2020-01-28T12:53:02Z

princeo911
Jan 28, 2020

Github just need to implement

https://minhaskamal.github.io/DownGit/#/home

It is just one button!

1 reply

pizofreude Dec 20, 2022

Easiest solution so far to download subdirectory of a remote GitHub repo! Chapeau dev!

zhyiyu · 2020-02-19T04:32:34Z

zhyiyu
Feb 19, 2020

I think the point when you do

git remote add origin -f url

everything is downloaded.

0 replies

seplveda · 2020-03-19T02:46:02Z

seplveda
Mar 19, 2020

works!

ty.

0 replies

hackf5 · 2020-03-20T11:38:19Z

hackf5
Mar 20, 2020

Your solution is right, but the sequence of commands didn’t work for me in Windows. My version of git has no sparse-checkout command.

I am using the new PowerShell 7 command prompt https://aka.ms/powershell I never thought I’d say this of PowerShell, but it’s great! Should work in cmd too.

mkdir my_repo
cd my_repo
git init
git remote add origin<font color="#008000">[url]<br></font><font color="#333333">git config core.sparseCheckout true</font>echo<font color="#008000">[path-to-include]</font>> .git\info\sparse_checkout
git pull origin master

[url] is your remote git repo like https://github.com/hackf5/unityspy.git
[path-to-include] is the path that you want to include from the repo, see: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-sparse-checkout#_full_pattern_set

0 replies

texadactyl · 2020-03-21T14:33:51Z

texadactyl
Mar 21, 2020

Yes, thanks. Worked for me. But, still very slow. Not your fault! (=:

Even faster:

USER=.....
PROJECT=.....
RELPATH=.....
BRANCH=master
svn export https://github.com/$USER/$PROJECT/branches/$BRANCH/$RELPATH

You need to install subversion as a prerequisite.

0 replies

odsantos · 2022-09-29T06:43:57Z

odsantos
Sep 29, 2022

Thanks (@AlMcKinlay ) for the answer.

0 replies

Grandyanc · 2022-11-27T03:13:37Z

Grandyanc
Nov 27, 2022

Hi there,
Am building a project, I have this page where users can buy a token from the site. When buying the token you will have to select the token name from the drop down option that fetched from the database, after selecting a name the price of the selected option will display in the text field, user will input their qualities and the total will auto calculate and display in the input field. I have userbuy, usersell, Token, as my table names In the database, the table name 'Token' is where user can buy the tokens from, Id, NameofToken, Price. In the userbuy table I have Id, TokenName, Amount, Quantity, Totalbuy, Image, Interest. After the user clicks on buy button the system will calculate a 3 percent interest from the Totalbuy for the user and insert it into the Interest column in the table, the order will go through if user has enough fund in his account else display s error of 'not enough fund'. This is how I want the page backend to work.

Please if you understand my problem, I just need an example working code to follow and do mine. Please any solution?

1 reply

Mohsyn Mar 26, 2024

Posting after quite a while because this is the page I landed on when I was looking for a solution to the same issue.

Here is what I found which worked for me: https://minhaskamal.github.io/DownGit

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How can I download a specific folder from a GitHub repo? #23087

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osioke Oct 11, 2017 Author

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osioke
Oct 11, 2017
Author