Multiple Git user configs

If you already had Git configured, you may not have used your student email. No problem — below are three different ways to solve it. If none of them is enough, you’ll find more ideas on Stack Overflow.

Method 1: Change your GitHub settings

The easiest is probably to change git config --global user.email to your student email, and at the same time change your primary email on GitHub to the same address.

git config --global user.email 'en999zz@student.lnu.se'

Replace the placeholder

Replace en999zz with your own student username.

Method 2: Create a local configuration

You can store the email address per repository instead of globally. More cumbersome, but it works.

Note that --global is missing this time.

git config user.email 'en999zz@student.lnu.se'

Replace the placeholder

Replace en999zz with your own student username.

Method 3: Conditional includes

If you don’t mind keeping all the course’s repositories as subfolders in a common folder, you can use Git’s conditional includes to automatically use the right user depending on where on the computer you are.

1. Create a main folder for the course’s repositories, for example school in your home directory (~). You can choose another name or location — just remember to adjust the paths in the rest of the steps.

   mkdir ~/school

2. Create a configuration file where the name and email for this folder will be stored:

   touch ~/school/.gitconfig

3. Open the file in any text editor, for example VS Code:

   code ~/school/.gitconfig

   The code command is missing on Mac?

   Open the command palette in VS Code (F1 or Cmd+Shift+P), search for “shell command” and run Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH. Restart the terminal afterwards.

4. Add the following to the file and save:

   [user]
     name = Ellen Nu
     email = en999zz@student.lnu.se

   Replace the placeholders

   Replace en999zz with your own student username and Ellen Nu with your own name.

5. Open your global .gitconfig (the same file you set your name and email in under Set up Git):

   code ~/.gitconfig

   Add the following at the bottom of the file and save:

   [includeIf "gitdir:~/school/"]
     path = ~/school/.gitconfig

   Match your own path

   Change the path if you chose another name or location for the folder in step 1. Keep the trailing / so that all subfolders are included.

6. Done! All repositories in school (or any subfolder of it) now use the configuration you set up in ~/school/.gitconfig.