How to authenticate to GitHub using username and password
By Flavio Copes
Learn how to authenticate to GitHub when username and password no longer work, by creating a personal access token with repo scope to use as the password.
You can’t authenticate to GitHub with your account password any more, at least not for Git operations. GitHub removed password authentication for Git in August 2021. What you do instead is create a personal access token and paste it wherever the password used to go.
Here’s how I ran into this, and how I fixed it.
I was setting up a new editor and I was trying the GitHub push workflow.
I committed my changes, pressed “Push” and I got a dialog window to enter my GitHub username and password.
On GitHub I have 2FA set up, so you can’t just login using those credentials. And even without 2FA, GitHub stopped accepting the account password for pushes and pulls. The dialog still says “password”, but what it really wants is a token.
Why did GitHub do this?
A password unlocks your whole account. A token doesn’t. You can give it only the permissions it needs, revoke it at any time without changing your password, and create a separate one for each app.
That’s why the fix is a personal access token that’s tied to the app, with the permission needed.
How to create a personal access token
Go to the GitHub settings, and locate Developer Settings:
Click Personal access tokens:
Now add a name so you’ll remember what this token is for, set the expiration to “No expiration” and enable the repo scope. That’s the only one you need to push and pull:
I picked “No expiration” because this was for my own editor on my own machine. An expiring token is safer, but then you have to repeat this dance when it runs out. Your call.
Save and you’ll be able to see the token.
Copy it now. GitHub shows the token only once, on this page. If you close the tab without copying it, there’s no way to see it again, and you’ll have to regenerate it.
Use the token as the password
Now enter this token as the password in the username/password dialog window. The username stays your normal GitHub username.
Most editors and operating systems store the credentials after the first successful push, so you won’t be asked again. On macOS they end up in the Keychain.
You’re set.