Backup GitHub

A simple CLI tool to back up all of your GitHub repositories as local mirror clones.

Features

• Backs up all repositories (public, private, and forks) for your authenticated GitHub account
• Uses git clone --mirror to create complete mirror clones including all branches, tags, and refs
• Stores OAuth tokens securely in your system keyring; no config files with plain-text credentials
• Handles GitHub API pagination automatically
• Runs up to 5 repository operations concurrently
• Handles SIGTERM and SIGINT (Control+C) gracefully

Prerequisites

• Go 1.22 or later
• Git installed and available in PATH
• A GitHub account

Installation

Homebrew (macOS)

brew tap ChrisWiegman/backup-github
brew install backup-github

Go install

go install github.com/ChrisWiegman/backup-github/cmd/backup-github@latest

Download a release

Pre-built binaries for macOS are available on the Releases page.

Usage

Run the command from the directory where you want your backups to be saved:

backup-github

On first run you will be prompted to authenticate with GitHub via OAuth. The token is saved to your system keyring so subsequent runs do not require re-authentication.

By default, repositories are cloned into the current working directory:

./
├── my-repo/
├── another-repo/
└── forked-repo/

Use --output-dir to specify a different destination — absolute, relative, or home-relative paths are all supported:

backup-github --output-dir ~/backups
backup-github --output-dir /mnt/external/github
backup-github --output-dir backups

Each directory is a bare mirror clone. Re-running backup-github will clone any new repositories and update existing ones via git remote update.

Progress is printed to the terminal as each repository is processed:

[1/47] Cloning my-new-repo
[2/47] Updating existing-repo
[3/47] Updating another-repo

Flags

Flag	Short	Default	Description
--output-dir	-o	current directory	Directory to write backups into (absolute, relative, or ~/…)
--verbose	-v	false	Enable verbose (detailed) output

Commands

backup-github version

Display the current version and build time:

backup-github version

backup-github logout

Remove the stored GitHub OAuth token from your system keyring. The next run of backup-github will prompt you to reauthenticate.

backup-github logout

GitHub OAuth permissions

The app requests the following GitHub scopes during authentication:

Scope	Purpose
repo	Access private repositories
read:org	Read organization membership
gist	Access gists

Development

Build

make install

This compiles the binary with the current git tag as the version and installs it to $GOPATH/bin.

Test

make test

Lint

make lint

Requires golangci-lint. The linter is installed automatically if not found.

Update dependencies

make update

Changelog

This project uses Changie for changelog management.

Add a new changelog entry:

make change

Cut a release changelog:

make changelog

License

MIT — see LICENSE.txt.