Ownership Transfer

When an open-source project needs to be moved from a personal account to an organization, or transferred between users, GitHub provides the Transfer ownership feature.

When to Transfer

• Personal project to organization: The project has grown and needs team-based management
• Departure/exit: The original maintainer is no longer involved and needs to hand off to a new maintainer
• Community incubation: A personally initiated project is adopted by a community and moved under a community organization

Preparation Before Transfer

Before transferring, confirm the following:

1. Notify all collaborators: Inform the project's collaborators and active contributors in advance
2. Back up important data: Although GitHub transfer preserves most data, a local backup is recommended
3. Check CI/CD configuration: The repository URL will change after transfer — related configurations need updating
4. Confirm target account/organization permissions: You must be an Owner of the target organization

Transfer Steps

1. Go to the repository's Settings page
2. Scroll to the bottom to the Danger Zone
3. Click Transfer ownership
4. Enter the target account or organization name
5. Type the repository name to confirm
6. Click to confirm the transfer

What Happens After Transfer

Item	Preserved?
Code and commit history	Yes
Issues and PRs	Yes
Stars and Watchers	Yes
Fork relationships	Yes
GitHub Pages	Needs reconfiguration
Webhooks	Preserved but URLs may need updating
Old URL redirects	GitHub redirects automatically

Note

Although GitHub automatically redirects the old URL to the new one, it is recommended to update the following as soon as possible after transfer:

• Repository links in project documentation
• Repository URLs in CI/CD configurations
• Repository information in package managers such as npm / PyPI

Next Step

Now that you understand ownership transfer, learn how to preview your documentation site from a fork — Fork Site Preview.