Unfork a Github fork without deleting

Question

I would like to "unfork" a GitHub fork without deleting + recreating it. Is this possible?

My reason is that my project now has a completely different use to the source of the fork, and makes no sense to be showing number of commits ahead, or the pull request button (or at least, with such prominence). With hindsight, I think I would have just git cloned the original, rather than made a fork.

I would like to not delete my fork in order to keep the issues + history of pull requests made.

I am happy to keep the history of commits, it's just the removal of the fork status that I'm after.

Answer 1

Na, na. Github is far more powerful than you think.

Undoubtedly, there's no way but make a bare copy of all of the codes. However, the copy procedure can be done by Github itself. So, no pain of mirroring the code with our own bandwidth.

Step by step:

• Click the "+" on top right corner, select "Import repository"
• Paste the old repo url (like https://github.com/user/repo) and enter a new name.
• Click "Begin import"

Done. Github will even give you an email notification when copy'n'paste is done.

Tested to work against my own project. Good feature isn't it?

Answer 2

This method will create a new "unforked" repository while maintaining everything else (commit history, branches and tags).

How to "unfork" a project in four easy steps:

1. git clone --bare https://github.com/{username}/{repository}
2. Delete original repository in https://github.com/{username}/{repository}/settings.
3. Create new repository with the name {repository} at https://github.com/new.
4. cd {repository}.git and git push --mirror https://github.com/{username}/{repository}

And done!