Log in to GitHub from the command line with multiple accounts

Question

I opened a new GitHub account to separate my business vs. personal repositories.

Now, I git init my local repository and git add remote origin <the repository HTTPS URL>

I try to push, and it seems to always take the credentials of my original account, not prompting me for the credentials for the new account.

I tried using the URL format with

https://<username>:<password>@github.com/<username>/<repository.git>

but that doesn't seem to help: I still get an error that the credentials are invalid for the original account username.

How do I log in with multiple sets of credentials or how would I somehow reset the original credentials to force password prompt when pushing?

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The only way I managed to push right now is by specifying the username:[email protected]/ in the URL in the git push command.

Answer 1

git config --global credential.helper cache

... which tells git to keep your password cached in memory for (by default) 15 minutes. You can set a longer timeout with:

git config --global credential.helper "cache --timeout=3600"

More useful links:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucketserver/permanently-authenticating-with-git-repositories-776639846.html

Using the .netrc file The .netrc file is a mechanism that allows you to specify which credentials to use for which server.

This method allows you to avoid entering a username and password every time you push to or pull from Git, but your Git password is stored in plain text.

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You can store your credentials using the following command

git config credential.helper store
git push http://example.com/repo.git
# Now type username and password and it should be saved by git.