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How to use two GitHub accounts in VS Code on Mac

Published Oct 16, 2026 · Updated Oct 16, 2026

“Two GitHub accounts in VS Code” is really two problems: which account Git commits and pushes as, and which account VS Code itself is signed into. They're fixed in different places.

Git and VS Code are two separate sign-ins

When you commit, Git stamps the commit with whatever user.name and user.email it finds in its config. When you push, it authenticates with an SSH key or a stored HTTPS credential. VS Code's own GitHub sign-in, the one Settings Sync, the Pull Requests extension and Copilot use, is a separate thing. Getting one right doesn't fix the other, so take them one at a time.

Commit as the right account in each folder

Keep work repositories under one folder (say ~/work) and tell Git to load a different identity there. In ~/.gitconfig:

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

Then put the work [user] name and email in ~/.gitconfig-work. Inside any repository under that folder, git config user.email now prints the work address, and everywhere else keeps your personal one.

Push with the right account

With SSH, give each account its own key and a host alias in ~/.ssh/config:

Host github-work
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Clone work repositories as git@github-work:org/repo.git (or change an existing remote to that form) and pushes use the work key. With HTTPS instead, git config --global credential.useHttpPath true makes the macOS Keychain store a credential per repository path rather than one for all of github.com.

Sign VS Code into two GitHub accounts

Since version 1.95 (October 2024), VS Code can be signed into more than one GitHub account at the same time, and each feature or extension uses the account you pick for it — one for Settings Sync and another for the Pull Requests extension, or one for pushing and another for Copilot. To add an account, start a sign-in from the feature that should use it and choose Use a new account…. VS Code's release notes warn that some extensions may not handle several accounts perfectly yet.

Profiles don't change this. A VS Code profile holds settings, keyboard shortcuts, snippets, tasks, MCP servers and extensions, and can switch automatically per folder. Accounts aren't on that list, so don't count on a profile to keep two GitHub sign-ins apart.

When you want two completely separate VS Codes

Sometimes you want the whole editor split: a client's VS Code with its own sign-ins, extensions and settings, nothing shared with yours. The code command can start VS Code with a separate data folder and extensions folder:

code --user-data-dir ~/vscode-client --extensions-dir ~/vscode-client-ext

Two catches. To macOS it's still the same app, with the same icon in the Dock. And extensions that run their own command-line tool keep that tool's account outside VS Code's folders: the Claude Code extension, for example, keeps its sign-in in ~/.claude and the login Keychain unless CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR points it somewhere else.

A separate copy of the VS Code app solves both: its own Dock icon and colour, its own data and extensions. MacDupl builds that copy and sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR per copy, so Claude Code inside it starts signed out and can hold a different account. Cursor and other VS Code family editors work the same way.

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