Remember Git passwords securely

Typing your password again and again when using git with remote repo is tiring.

Git will integrate with your OS-level password storage easily enough though.

Macs

I'm under the impression that on Macs, it just works.  It's built into git to interface with Mac's Keychain service.

Or else just install Git-Credential-Manager-for-Mac-and-Linux from Microsoft.  You'll need Homebrew, which is a great package manager for Macs for various development tools.  Then follow the instructions: it's super easy.

Windows

Super easy.  Just download and install the .exe for Git-Credential-Manager-for-Windows from Microsoft.

Linux

There's 3 possibilities:

use Git-Credential-Manager-for-Mac-and-Linux

You can install Git-Credential-Manager-for-Mac-and-Linux from Microsoft.  You'll need Linuxbrew, a package manager I've never heard of before today.  Then follow the instructions: it's looks easy.

But this is not my favorite option because:

1. never heard of Linuxbrew
   
   
2. MS Git-Credential-Manager sends telemetry to Microsoft.  Not much telemetry data, and I'm trusting of MS more or less, but if you're using Linux, I'm going to guess you might see "telemetry" and "MS" and wonder why it's needed for using Git.
   
   
3. someone's tried it a year ago and it didn't work

use Libsecret (best option)

It's 3 lines of commands to run:

sudo apt-get install libsecret-1-0 libsecret-1-dev
sudo make --directory=/usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret
git config --global credential.helper /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/libsecret/git-credential-libsecret

This saves your credentials encrypted in ~/.local/share/keyrings.

Yes, you're downloading and compiling it yourself as it's not built-in... in 2020. Crazy.  But is apparently still The Way to go with Ubuntu or Lubuntu 19.10.

Libsecret should interact with the OS level password store.  On Ubuntu, that would be gnome-keyring.  If you need to manage the keys stored by gnome-keyring, you'll need to install another tool like the GUI utility Seahorse:

sudo apt-get install seahorse

use the built-in store (totally insecure and NOT encrypted)

Totally built-in.  Nothing to install.  One line to set up:

git config --global credential.helper store

It stores your passwords in PLAIN text in a file in your home directory.  Don't do this.  Anyone can read your password.  I can read your password.  So don't do this.