Tip
If you require more granular access to a repository owned by your personal account, consider transferring the repository to an organization. For more information, see Transferring a repository.
Owner access for a repository owned by a personal account
Repositories owned by personal accounts have a single owner who has full control of the repository. In addition to the actions that any collaborator can perform, the repository owner can perform the following actions.
| Action | More information |
|---|---|
| Add collaborators | Inviting collaborators to a personal repository |
| Change the visibility of the repository | Setting repository visibility |
| Rename a branch, including the default branch | Renaming a branch |
| Merge a pull request on a protected branch, even if there are no approving reviews | About protected branches |
| Delete the repository | Deleting a repository |
| Manage the repository's topics | Classifying your repository with topics |
| Delete and restore packages | Deleting and restoring a package |
| Customize the repository's social media preview | Customizing your repository's social media preview |
| Create a template from the repository | Creating a template repository |
| Control access to Dependabot alerts | Managing security and analysis settings for your repository |
| Define code owners for the repository | About code owners |
| Archive the repository | Archiving repositories |
| Allow or disallow auto-merge for pull requests | Managing auto-merge for pull requests in your repository |
| Manage deploy keys | Managing deploy keys |
| Manage webhooks | About webhooks |
Collaborator access for a repository owned by a personal account
Collaborators on a personal repository can pull (read) the contents of the repository and push (write) changes to the repository.
Note
In a private repository, repository owners can only grant write access to collaborators. Collaborators can't have read-only access to repositories owned by a personal account.
Collaborators can also perform the following actions.
| Action | More information |
|---|---|
| Fork the repository | About forks |
| Rename a branch other than the default branch | Renaming a branch |
| Create, edit, and delete comments on commits, pull requests, and issues in the repository | |
| Create, assign, close, and re-open issues in the repository | GitHub Issues documentation |
| Manage labels for issues and pull requests in the repository | Managing labels |
| Manage milestones for issues and pull requests in the repository | Creating and editing milestones for issues and pull requests |
| Mark an issue or pull request in the repository as a duplicate | Marking issues or pull requests as a duplicate |
| Create, merge, and close pull requests in the repository | Proposing changes to your work with pull requests |
| Enable and disable auto-merge for a pull request | Automatically merging a pull request |
| Apply suggested changes to pull requests in the repository | Incorporating feedback in your pull request |
| Create a pull request from a fork of the repository | Creating a pull request from a fork |
| Submit a review on a pull request that affects the mergeability of the pull request | Reviewing proposed changes in a pull request |
| Create and edit a wiki for the repository | About wikis |
| Create and edit releases for the repository | Managing releases in a repository |
| Act as a code owner for the repository | About code owners |
| Remove themselves as collaborators on the repository | Removing yourself from a collaborator's repository |
If you want more granular control of repository permissions, you can create a repository within an organization. For more information, see Access permissions on GitHub.
Access after removing a collaborator
While forks of private repositories are deleted when a collaborator is removed, the person will still retain any local clones of your repository.
When you remove a collaborator from your project, they lose read/write access to your repository. If the repository is private and the person has created a fork, then that fork is also deleted.
Next steps
To learn how to add collaborators to your personal repository, see Inviting collaborators to a personal repository.