How to Download an Entire GitHub Repository as a ZIP
GitHub already supports this natively for whole repos — unlike downloading a single subfolder, which it doesn't support at all. Click the green "Code" dropdown on any repo's homepage and choose "Download ZIP," or fetch the same file directly from a predictable codeload URL. No third-party tool is needed for this specific case.
Whether you want a one-click download in the browser or a scriptable command for a build pipeline, here are the three practical ways to grab a full repository as a ZIP, from easiest to most flexible.
1. The native "Code" button method
This is the fastest option and needs nothing installed. On any public repository's homepage, click the green Code button near the top right, then choose Download ZIP from the dropdown. GitHub packages the entire default branch — every file and folder in the repo — into a single ZIP archive and downloads it straight to your browser's downloads folder.
If you need a specific branch or tag instead of the default one, switch the branch selector at the top of the file list before opening the Code dropdown, and the ZIP will reflect that branch's contents instead.
2. The direct codeload URL
Under the hood, that "Download ZIP" button just links to a predictable URL on GitHub's codeload subdomain. You can construct and fetch this URL yourself with curl, wget, or any HTTP client, which is useful for scripts, CI jobs, or servers where opening a browser isn't an option.
The pattern for a branch is:
https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/archive/refs/heads/{branch}.zipAnd for a specific release tag:
https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/archive/{tag}.zipFor example, to download the main branch of a repository with curl:
curl -L -o repo.zip https://github.com/owner/repo/archive/refs/heads/main.zipThe -L flag matters here because GitHub redirects this request to its codeload servers — without it, curl will just save the redirect response instead of the actual ZIP file.
3. git clone as the developer-standard alternative
If you're going to keep working with the code rather than just inspect a snapshot, git clone is the standard approach:
git clone https://github.com/owner/repo.gitThe key difference from a ZIP download is that a clone includes the full commit history — every past change, branch, and tag metadata stored in a local .git directory — which makes the clone heavier on disk but lets you view history, create branches, and push changes back. A ZIP archive, by contrast, is just a snapshot of one branch's files at one point in time, with no .git history at all, and it's typically smaller and faster to grab when all you want is the code as it currently stands.
Only need one folder, not the whole repo?
None of these methods let you grab just ONE subfolder — they always download the whole repository. If you only need a specific folder (not the whole thing), that's what GitHubFolder is built for: paste a folder URL and get a ZIP of just that folder, nothing else.