GitHub Desktop is an open-source application that brings your favorite GitHub collaboration functionalities to your PC or laptop. Written in TypeScript and React, GitHub Desktop comes with an extremely intuitive interface and simple, yet powerful features that can help to improve your development workflow.

What are the key features of GitHub Desktop?

Commit together: This tool allows you to attribute commits with other project collaborators. This is great for teamwork, but it also facilitates a new way for showing credit to someone who helped you out by fixing something. Thanks to this feature it is easier than ever before to see who has contributed to every commit and how many contributors there are in total.
Branches: View your own repositories and the ones you participate in as a collaborator. Create pull requests, open and merge pull requests from others, and see which pull requests cannot be merged automatically due to merge conflicts.
Syntax highlighting: GitHub Desktop includes a brand new syntax highlighting feature, which makes revising the code of any diff much easier and more efficient. Syntax highlighted diffs are available for a variety of different programming languages.
Editor integrations: The software seamlessly integrates with your terminal and your favorite code editor. You can open your editor or your shell in a single click, and jump back to GitHub Desktop whenever you want.
Expanded image diff: Besides the possibility to review text-based diffs, GitHUb Desktop also boasts an image comparison tool. The application places any images used in the different versions of your project side-by-side.

How does GitHub Desktop work?

If you are familiar with the web-based interface of GitHub, then you won't need much time to get used to the desktop version. It basically does everything that GitHub.com can do for you. For new users, we recommend you to check out the step-by-step installation guide offered on GitHub Docs.