Managing Multiple Git Accounts on One Machine(Mac/Linux)
#git#github#productivity#automation
Madhan Gannarapu

Madhan Gannarapu @madhan_gannarapu

About: A Software Developer passionate about building intuitive, scalable, and high-performance digital experiences. With a strong foundation in both mobile and web application development

Location:
Hyderabad, India
Joined:
Aug 8, 2022

Managing Multiple Git Accounts on One Machine(Mac/Linux)

Publish Date: Jul 4
1 0

How to set up and manage personal and work Git accounts on your local machine.

🚀 Introduction

Many developers work with both personal and work GitHub accounts. Here's how to manage them on a Mac...

What You’ll Learn

✅ Use SSH to separate identities
✅ Automatically apply correct Git user config based on folder
✅ Clean directory structure

📁 Directory Setup 

~/
├── .ssh/
│   ├── work/
│   │   ├── id_ed25519_work
│   │   ├── id_ed25519_work.pub
│   ├── personal/
│   │   ├── id_ed25519_personal
│   │   ├── id_ed25519_personal.pub
│   └── config               # SSH config file
├── .gitconfig
├── .gitconfig-work          # Workspace-specific Git config
├── .gitconfig-personal      # Personal Git config
├── work/                    # All workspace (work) repositories
└── personal/                # All personal repositories
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Set Up Personal and Work 

mkdir personal work
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personal: Use this folder for:

  • Your own apps, portfolios
  • Open source contributions
  • Learning new tech, coding experiments
  • Resume or portfolio projects
  • Hackathons or fun builds

work: Use this folder for:

  • company apps/repos
  • poc apps
  • Anything related to employment

Generate SSH Keys for Each Git Account

Generate a unique SSH key for each GitHub or GitLab account:

# Personal
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-email@personal.com" -f ~/.ssh/personal/id_ed25519_personal

# Work
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-email@company.com" -f ~/.ssh/work/id_ed25519_work
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Now Add the SSH keys to the ssh-agent:

# Personal
ssh-add ~/.ssh/personal/id_ed25519_personal

# Work
ssh-add ~/.ssh/work/id_ed25519_work
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Add SSH Keys to Your GitHub Accounts (Company & Personal)

Once you've generated the SSH keys, you need to add the public keys to your respective GitHub accounts so they can recognize and authorize your machine
To view the SSH keys in terminal run

# Personal
cat ~/.ssh/personal/id_ed25519_personal.pub

# work
cat ~/.ssh/work/id_ed25519_work.pub
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Configure the SSH Config File

Create or update your ~/.ssh/config file:

touch ~/.ssh/config
open ~/.ssh/config
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add:

# Personal
Host github.com-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/personal/id_ed25519_personal

# Work
Host github.com-work
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/work/id_ed25519_work
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Use github.com-personal or github.com-work as the remote URL host.

Verification SSH with GitHub accounts

To verify SSH works:

ssh -T git@github-work
ssh -T git@github-personal
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Expect messages like: “Hi ! You've successfully authenticated...”

Configure the Global.gitconfig File

Create two custom Git configs:

# Personal Git config
touch ~/.gitconfig-personal

# Work Git config
touch ~/.gitconfig-work
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Open and fill them like this:
~/.gitconfig-personal

[user]
  name = Madhan Gannarapu
  email = your-email@personal.com
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~/.gitconfig-work

[user]
  name = Madhan Gannarapu
  email = your-email@company.com
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Use Conditional Includes in Global .gitconfig

Create or update your ~/.ssh/config file:

touch ~/.ssh/config
open ~/.ssh/config
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Paste this:

[user]
  name = Default Madhan
  email = default@example.com

[includeIf "gitdir:~/work/**"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-work

[includeIf "gitdir:~/personal/**"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-personal
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This config tells Git to automatically use different identity files depending on which directory the repo is in.

Clone Repos with Correct SSH Host

Use the matching host from your ~/.ssh/config file

# Personal
git clone git@github.com-personal:username/repo.git ~/Projects/personal/repo

# Work
git clone git@github.com-work:company/repo.git ~/Projects/work/repo
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