Open part of Github repository as IntelliJ project

Question

I have large Github repository with individual projects uploaded as subdirectories. Those subdirectories are IntelliJ IDEA projects that I want to work on, but the problem is that I can only clone the whole repository. Instead, I want to clone whole repository, open individual subdirectories as IntelliJ projects and make commits visible to entire repository. Can it be done, or do I have to destroy the repository, create directory and make every project a separate repository in subdirectories?

I have something like:

- main_directory (repository):
  - lab1 (first project)
  - lab2 (second project)

I want to clone whole repository and commit to entire repository, but edit individual projects with IntelliJ. It can be done with Github Desktop, but I want to do it from IntelliJ.

Answer 1

You can map any directory to the version control in IntelliJ IDEA VCS Settings.

So you can open any project like lab1 and associate main_directory with the version control.