Maintaining ownership continuity of your user account's repositories

About successors

We recommend inviting another GitHub user to be your successor, to manage your user owned repositories if you cannot. As a successor, they will have permission to:

• Archive your public repositories.
• Transfer your public repositories to their own user owned account.
• Transfer your public repositories to an organization where they can create repositories.

Successors cannot log into your account.

An appointed successor can manage your public repositories after presenting a death certificate then waiting for 7 days or presenting an obituary then waiting for 21 days. For more information, see “GitHub Deceased User Policy."

To request access to manage repositories as a successor, contact GitHub Support.

Inviting a successor

The person you invite to be your successor must have a GitHub account.

1. In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings.
2. In the left sidebar, click Account.
3. Under "Successor settings", to invite a successor, begin typing a username, full name, or email address, then click their name when it appears.
4. Click Add successor.
5. If prompted, confirm your GitHub password.
6. The user you've invited will be listed as "Pending" until they agree to become your successor.