How to Work with Multiple GitHub Accounts Using SSH Keys

Prerequisites

  • Git must be installed on your system. Download Git
  • Git Bash (comes with Git for Windows) or a terminal application
  • Access to both your personal and work GitHub accounts

How to Open Git Bash on Windows

After installing Git for Windows, you can open Git Bash by:

  1. Pressing the Windows key and typing "Git Bash"
  2. Clicking on the "Git Bash" app in the search results

Alternatively, you can right-click in any folder in File Explorer and select Git Bash Here to open a terminal in that directory.

If you use more than one GitHub account — for example, a personal and a work account — you've likely run into permission issues or confusing identity prompts. Here's a clean, reliable way to manage multiple GitHub accounts using SSH keys and a basic configuration.

Step 1: Create Two Separate SSH Keys

Open Git Bash and run these commands to generate your SSH keys:

# Generate personal SSH key
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_personal_email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/personal/id_ed25519_personal_nopass

# Generate work SSH key
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_work_email@company.com" -f ~/.ssh/work/id_ed25519_work_nopass

What does ed25519 mean?

ed25519 is a modern public-key signature algorithm that is faster and more secure than the older rsa algorithm. It is recommended for new SSH keys because of its strong security and performance.

Note: Press Enter when prompted for a passphrase (leave it blank for seamless usage).

Step 2: Add the Public Keys to GitHub

For each key:

  1. Run: 
    cat ~/.ssh/[your_key].pub
  2. Copy the output
  3. Go to GitHub → Settings → SSH and GPG Keys → New SSH key
  4. Paste the public key and save

Make sure you do this under the correct account (personal or work).

Step 3: Configure SSH to Use the Right Key

Open or create the SSH config file:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Add the following configuration:

# Personal GitHub
Host github-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/personal/id_ed25519_personal_nopass
  IdentitiesOnly yes

# Work GitHub
Host github-work
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/work/id_ed25519_work_nopass
  IdentitiesOnly yes

Step 4: Clone or Update Repositories

Use these hostnames instead of the default github.com:

# Clone a personal repo
git clone git@github-personal:yourusername/your-personal-repo.git

# Clone a work repo
git clone git@github-work:yourworkaccount/your-work-repo.git

To update an existing repository:

git remote set-url origin git@github-personal:yourusername/your-personal-repo.git

Step 5: Test the Connection

Verify your setup by running:

ssh -T git@github-personal
ssh -T git@github-work

You should see a success message like:

Hi yourusername! You've successfully authenticated...

Final Thoughts

By separating your SSH keys and pointing each GitHub host to a specific one, you avoid all credential conflicts. This is a clean and secure way to manage multiple identities on the same machine, whether you're working across jobs, projects, or freelancing.