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Switching git user per folder on macOS

· 2 min read
Nikola Sekiw
Nikola Sekiw
Backend developer at Epinova

When I push or merge from Rider IDE, my personal email shows up in the commits on Bitbucket. This isn’t ideal for client projects. The reason this happens is because git is configured globally on my machine with my personal email, since I also use GitHub for personal projects and want my private email associated with those.

To avoid this, I configure a local git identity for each client project folder. This way I can keep my personal and professional git activity separate. Here are the steps for setting up a local git user.

Step 1. Navigate to the project folder in your terminal:​

cd /path/to/your/project

Step 2. Check the current Git email for this folder:​

git config user.email

If nothing is returned, it means the folder is using the global git configuration.

Step 3. Set a new email for this specific project:​

git config user.email "myemail@myemail.com"

Step 4. Verify the change:​

git config user.email

You should now see the updated email address.

Check your global git configuration​

To confirm that your global git user is still set to your personal email:

git config --global user.email

This will show the email configured globally on your machine.