GitHub Desktop Plus

This is an up-to-date fork of GitHub Desktop with additional features and improvements.

Important

This is a community-maintained project. It is not an official GitHub product.

Highlights 👀

Search commits by title, message, tag, or hash	Add multiple GitHub, Bitbucket & GitLab accounts
Create multiple stashes per branch	Native support for Git Worktrees
Buttons optimized for visual recognition	Quickly find unpushed branches

Additional Features in GitHub Desktop Plus ✨

Click to expand list

General:

• Support for multiple accounts of the same endpoint (e.g. multiple GitHub accounts).
  Simply add as many accounts as you want in the "Accounts" settings page. If a repository is using an incorrect account, you can change it in the repository settings.

• Support for Git Worktrees: view and manage all your worktrees in the same repository, with the ability to easily switch between them.
  To view the worktrees dropdown, enable it in the app settings or press Ctrl+E / Cmd+E.

• Support for multiple windows: open multiple repositories in separate windows, or the same repository in multiple windows (e.g. to view different files at the same time).
  Select "File" > "Open new window" or press Ctrl+Alt+N/Cmd+Alt+N. You can also right-click on a repository in the list and select "Open repository in new window".

• Bitbucket and GitLab integration:

  • Clone repositories from within the app.
  • Preview and create pull requests.
  • View pull requests status, including checks.
  • Display a commit or PR in Bitbucket/GitLab (web browser).
  • Correctly set repository owner (instead of displaying "Other").

  The integration is enabled automatically for the corresponding repositories if you are logged in to your account.

• Allow using a different text editor for a given repo, by overriding it in the repository settings.

• Some similar-looking buttons now have distinct icons for faster visual recognition.

• Buttons with destructive actions have a red background to make them more visually distinct.

• Allow generating branch name presets by calling an external script (e.g. fetching ticket numbers from an issue tracker).
  Click here for more details.

• Allow showing the effective Git name and email used for commits more prominently above the commit message input.

Repositories list:

• "Pull all" button to fetch and pull all your repositories at once.

• Allow showing the current branch name next to the repository name.

• Allow hiding the "Recent" repositories section.

• Allow customizing the repository groups to better organize your repositories.
  Right click on a repository and select "Change group name".

Branches list:

• Added a warning indicator to local-only branches (branches that have not been pushed to the remote, or that have been deleted automatically after a PR).

• Allow manually setting which is the default branch for a repository (even if it doesn't match the one configured in the remote).
  Right click on a branch and select "Set as default branch". The default branch is used as the base when creating new branches.

• Allow changing the sort order of the branch list to either "Recently updated" or "Alphabetical".

History tab:

• Search commits by title, message, tag, or hash.

• Use a different font style for merge commits in order to make them visually distinct, since most of the time they are not as relevant.

• Allow choosing between relative dates ("3 days ago") or absolute dates ("Mar 14, 2026, 2:34 PM") for displaying commit dates.

• If a commit modifies only 1 file, allow double-clicking the commit to open the file. For other commits, you can still double-click the file as usual.

• Allow deleting commits and tags that have already been pushed. Please note that this is intended for advanced users only, and can cause problems if the commits have already been pulled by other collaborators.

Changes tab:

• Added the option to permanently discard changes without sending to trash. This is useful when the there are many changed files and the regular "Discard" is extremely slow.

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Download and Installation 📦

Windows

Click to expand

Using Winget (Recommended)

winget install polrivero.GitHubDesktopPlus

To update, run winget upgrade polrivero.GitHubDesktopPlus or winget upgrade --all to update all your winget packages. Make sure to update regularly to get the latest features and fixes.

Manual download (Not recommended)

Download and execute the installer from the releases page.

	64-bit x86	64-bit ARM
.EXE Installer	-win-x64.exe	-win-arm64.exe
.MSI Installer	-win-x64.msi	-win-arm64.msi

Please note that the app doesn't autoupdate like the official GitHub Desktop, so you will need to manually download and install it every time you want to update.
For this reason, I recommend using Winget instead of the manual download.

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macOS

Click to expand

Using Homebrew (Recommended)

brew install pol-rivero/tap/github-desktop-plus

Make sure to run brew update regularly to get the latest updates for GitHub Desktop Plus.

Manual download (Not recommended)

Download and extract the ZIP file from the releases page. Click the app file to run it.
If you encounter the error "Apple could not verify this app is free of malware", go to "System Settings" > "Privacy & Security", scroll down to "Security" and click "Open Anyway" on "GitHub Desktop Plus".

64-bit x86	64-bit ARM (Apple Silicon)
-macOS-x64.zip	-macOS-arm64.zip

Please note that the app doesn't autoupdate like the official GitHub Desktop, so you will need to manually download it every time you want to update.
For this reason, I recommend using Homebrew instead of the manual download.

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Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Pop!_OS / Zorin OS (APT)

Click to expand

Create the repository file:

sudo curl https://gpg.polrivero.com/public.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/polrivero.gpg
echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/polrivero.gpg] https://deb.github-desktop.polrivero.com/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-desktop-plus.list

Update the package list and install:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install github-desktop-plus

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Fedora / RHEL / CentOS (RPM)

Click to expand

Create the repository file:

sudo rpm --import https://gpg.polrivero.com/public.key
echo -e "[github-desktop-plus]\nname=GitHub Desktop Plus\nbaseurl=https://rpm.github-desktop.polrivero.com/\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1\nrepo_gpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://gpg.polrivero.com/public.key" | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/github-desktop-plus.repo

Update the package list and install:

sudo dnf check-update
sudo dnf install github-desktop-plus

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Arch Linux / Manjaro (AUR)

Click to expand

Simply install github-desktop-plus-bin from the AUR using your preferred AUR helper.

yay -S github-desktop-plus-bin

You can also build from source by installing github-desktop-plus or github-desktop-plus-git from the AUR.

gnome-keyring is required and the daemon must be launched either at login or when the X server / Wayland compositor is started. Normally this is handled by a display manager, but in other cases following the instructions found on the Arch Wiki will fix the issue of not being able to save login credentials.

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Flatpak (any distro)

Click to expand

Simply install GitHub Desktop Plus from Flathub:

flatpak install flathub io.github.pol_rivero.github-desktop-plus

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AppImage (any distro, not recommended)

Click to expand

IMPORTANT: I strongly recommend using your distribution's native package (APT, RPM and AUR packages above) or Flatpak instead of the AppImage, as it requires some manual setup for the sign-in feature to work.
If you need to use the AppImage, follow these steps:

1. Manually create a github-desktop-plus.desktop entry.
2. Link the MIME type:

   xdg-mime default github-desktop-plus.desktop x-scheme-handler/x-github-desktop-auth

Using "AM"/"AppMan"

# If using "AM":
am install github-desktop-plus
# If using "AppMan":
appman install github-desktop-plus

Manual download (Not recommended)

Download the AppImage from the releases page:

64-bit x86	64-bit ARM
-linux-x86_64.AppImage	-linux-arm64.AppImage

Then, make it executable:

chmod +x GitHub-Desktop-Plus-*-linux-*.AppImage

Finally, double-click the .AppImage file to run it.

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Common issues 🛠️

Before opening a new issue, please check the Known Issues document for common issues and their workarounds.

Command Line Interface 💻

GitHub Desktop Plus includes a CLI (github-desktop-plus-cli) for opening and cloning repositories from the terminal. See the CLI documentation for usage details and instructions on creating a shorter alias.

Running the app locally 🏗️

From the terminal

corepack enable  # Install yarn if needed
yarn             # Install dependencies
yarn build:dev   # Initial build
yarn start       # Start the app for development and watch for changes

• It's normal for the app to take a while to start up, especially the first time.

• While starting up, this error is normal: UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Invalid header: Does not start with Cr24

• You don't need to restart the app to apply changes. Just reload the window (Ctrl + Alt + R / Cmd + Alt + R).

• Changes to the code inside main-process do require a full rebuild. Stop the app and run yarn build:dev again.

• Read this document for more information on how to set up your development environment.

From VSCode

The first time you open the project, install the dependencies by running:

corepack enable
yarn

Then, you can simply build and run the app by pressing F5.
Breakpoints should be set in the developer tools, not the VSCode editor.

Running tests

I recommend running the tests in a Docker container for reproducibility and to avoid conflicts with your git configuration.
After installing the dependencies with yarn, make sure you have Docker installed and run:

yarn test:docker

Why this fork?

First of all, because shiftkey's fork is currently unmaintained (last commit was in February 2025), so all Linux users are no longer getting the latest features and fixes from the official GitHub Desktop repository.

Secondly, I think the official GitHub Desktop app is very slow in terms of updates and lacks some advanced features that I'd like. This fork has low code quality requirements compared to the official repo, so I (and hopefully you as well) can add features and improvements quickly.
This fork also focuses on integrating nicely with Bitbucket, since I use it for work and haven't found a good Linux GUI client for it.

Keep in mind that this version is not endorsed by GitHub, and it's aimed at power users with technical knowledge. If you're looking for a polished and stable product, I recommend using the official GitHub Desktop app instead.