Push my App to Github using Visual Studio for Mac

Question

Push my App to Github using Visual Studio for Mac

Jassim Al Rahma 1,616

Hi,

How can I push my App to Github using Visual Studio for Mac? I can't find this option.

Kindly help..

Thanks,
Jassim

2 answers

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Answer 1

Michael Taylor 60,161

You aren't in a Git repo so you don't have the option to push to it. In order to push changes to Github you first need to have a repo. In my experience it is easier to create the repo in Github first and then clone it into VS to do your work. You have gone the other way here.

Use the Initialize Repository option to set up a local Git repo. You'll then need to push that repo to Github but I cannot say how to do that in VS for Mac. Ultimately what needs to happen is your local repo needs to be pointed to an existing user account in Github so it can create the repo in Github. That repo cannot already exist. Once that has been done then you will have the option to pull and push because you're local folder structure is now tied to a Git repo. The WIndows version of VS has documentation here to discuss how to do that.

My preferred approach is to go to Github and log in. Then create your repo there. Then go back to VS and select Clone a repository and specify the URL to the repo you just created. Note that cloning requires an empty directory and the default name will match the repo name. So if you already have a folder that matches the name of the repo you cannot clone into it. You can use any local name you want though, Git doesn't care. Once you've cloned the repository locally then copy your files (and folders) into that new folder structure (the repo folder). You can then push your changes back to Github. The docs for the Windows version of VS are available here to discuss pushing changes.

Jassim Al Rahma 1,616 Reputation points

2023-01-05T20:07:15.683+00:00

but if that is the case then how can I do it for the existing apps where the folder is not empty?
Michael Taylor 60,161 Reputation points

2023-01-05T20:11:38.59+00:00

The 2 options I provided talked about that. I personally recommend you go to Github and create your repo there, then clone it to your local machine into an empty directory (the local directory name is irrelevant). Then copy your existing code from whereever it is at on the file system into the new (cloned) directory. Then you can push your changes back.

If for some reason you're really tied to your local folder name then you have to go through the longer process of initing the repo locally, setting the upstream to point to the Github repo and then pushing it. That is more work and error prone to me. But the links I gave in my post show you how to do this in VS.
Jassim Al Rahma 1,616 Reputation points

2023-01-25T15:03:55.1333333+00:00

but this does not work because I try to clone the repo it will overwrite my existing project that means it will delete (empty) all files instead of taking my file and send them to Github as you can see in below screenshot
Michael Taylor 60,161 Reputation points

2023-01-25T15:47:56.9533333+00:00

Correct. That is why I mentioned option 2. You need to create the repo in Github, clone to an empty directory locally (it doesn't matter what you call it) and then copy your existing code into the new repo folder. Then push your changes back to Github.

Alternatively rename your local directory to something else (e.g. myrepox), then create the repo in Github and clone it locally (e.g. myrepo). Finally copy your code from the old directory to the new and push back to Github.

At least this is the easiest solution that I use.

Answer 2

Bruce (SqlWork.com) 77,686 Volunteer Moderator

while creating the repo in github first as suggested is easier, here are the directions for the other way around:

[https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/importing-your-projects-to-github/importing-source-code-to-github/adding-locally-hosted-code-to-github

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Push my App to Github using Visual Studio for Mac

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