Delete fork dependency of a GitHub repository

How can I make GitHub forget or disassociate that my repo was originally a fork of another project?

I forked a project in GitHub. I can now see "forked from whatever/whatever". The parent repository "whatever/whatever" is no longer maintained. I have been allowed to continue use of the code base of the original repository to create an independent repository.

Is there a way to detach my project from the original repository?

Solution 1:

You can contact github support and ask them to switch your repository to "normal mode".

On this page, "Commit was made in a fork" paragraph, it is explained that one has to go through support to switch. Therefore, it is likely that there is no way to do that by yourself (unless you destroy and recreate your repo which is explained before... if you do so be careful if you have tickets or a wiki attached to your project as they will be deleted!).

Solution 2:

You could duplicate the forked repository to a new repository (without the fork dependency) from the GitHub UI, then remove the original forked one:

Sign in to GitHub
Select the + sign in the top right corner and select Import repository.
Import your forked repository. The new repository won't have the fork dependency.
Delete the original, forked repository in the repository settings.

NOTE: This approach will not preserve issues and pull requests.

Solution 3:

Make sure you have all the important branches and tags on your local repo, delete the github repo, recreate the repository through usual means (no forking) and push the local repository back with git push --all. Note that if you have local branches that you don't want to publish, might be worth to create a temporary clean local clone for the operation.

However, this will also get rid of wiki and issues. As the wiki is in fact it's own repository, it can be handled similarly by cloning it and then recreating and pushing. The repo address is on wiki's Git Access page ([email protected]:user/repo.wiki.git).

This leaves issues. They can be exported through the API, but as far as I know, you can only create issues and comments with your person, so importing them perfectly is impossible.

So, if you need issues to be preserved, you should go through github support as Thomas Moulard suggests.

Solution 4:

I got the similar problem, and ended up using this github help page to solve it. I didn't mind about the wiki and issues tracker as it was for my blog using a theme kindly developed by another user.

To detach a forked repo and use it as your own after several commits without losing the whole history:

git clone --bare [email protected]:user/forked_repo.git

Create a new empty reposity new-repository on the github website. And push a mirrored version:

cd user.github.com.git/

git push --mirror [email protected]:user/new-repository.git

One can rename on github, the forked_repository with another name to keep it as backup and check updates if needed. Or simply delete it.

Renaming the new-repository to the original name does the job. As a side effect, your commits now appear in your history.

Solution 5:

This only applies to GitHub Enterprise, not on github.com

Logged in to an account that has admin privileges:

Go to the repository that you need to detach: https://<ghe url>/<org>/<repo>
Click on the “Site Admin” rocket on the top right corner
Click "Collaboration" on the top menu bar
Click on “Network” on the left pane
Click on “Make Root” in the Network Structure pane
Accept

This was tested on GitHub Enterprise 2.9