It seems to me that there must be some setting, remote string perhaps (or setting since fork is not a git construct), that tells a repo that it is a fork of another. If that was not the case, I have been able merge unrelated repositories before using the command line ( merge -allow-unrelated-histories) but this seems a messy way to resolve the 's issue, as it will create duplicate very similar histories. I was happy to delete the above repos and start again, since the changes I wished to make were trivial. Perhaps it was because Desktop behaviour has changes due to software updates since they were created, and these broke Desktop's and 's 'fork detection' behaviour? I feel like the above replicated the likely processes I used to create the problem clones. It remains a mystery to me what caused the original incarnations of the above two clones not to be able to be converted to or recognised as forks. I could however go on to create a pull request via, so success in the end. About Git Large File Storage and GitHub Desktop. Configuring a default editor in GitHub Desktop. Configuring basic settings in GitHub Desktop. On attempting to sync forks via, it recognises they are not in sync, but presumably as I don't have write privileges to upstream, there is no option for me to sync. Set up Git, connect your default editor, and customize settings to align GitHub Desktop with your workflow. If you have configured two-factor authentication (2FA) for GitHub, do one of the following: If you set up 2FA via SMS. Alternatively, if you were already signed in to GitHub, follow the prompts to return to GitHub Desktop to finish authenticating. Although Desktop did not give me the option to create a pull request, so suspicion! To authenticate to GitHub, in the browser, type your credentials and click Sign in. On pushing via Desktop I was asked if I wanted to create a fork. To sync your forked repo with the parent or central repo on GitHub you: Create a pull request on to update your fork of the repository from the original repository, and. This time I made the changes directly in main and committed them. Just to test whether 'not creating a new branch' was the cause of my pain, I then deleted the other repo's github clone etc., and again created a new clone using GitHub Desktop. Success, I have now been able to make changes, commit locally and create a pull request with original upstream repo as the target.
![update my fork github desktop update my fork github desktop](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p9Lh2.png)
It recognised correctly that I didn't have access to upstream and asked to create a fork at CaverBruce. This is feasible with GitHub Desktop since version 1.0.7 considering the following: If the current branch does not have any commits ahead upstream (the original repo of the fork), the new commits can be pulled without creating a new merge commit. I then created a new branch and used GitHub Desktop to publish it. However to test the Github Desktop route (to fork creation) and recover from my immediate impasse I deleted one repo's clone and removed it from Github Desktop, TortoiseGit and local drive, and started afresh creating a clone using GitHub Desktop. So I'll take on board that best practice is to fork directly using. Although I have four clone/fork pairs of repos that are working perfectly afaik for some years. What you say makes sense, however for two clone/'fork' pairs of repos I cannot replicate this behaviour.