🛠️ How to Use Two Different Git Accounts with SSH on the Same Machine
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🛠️ How to Use Two Different Git Accounts with SSH on the Same Machine

If you're a developer juggling multiple Git accounts—say, one for work and one for personal projects—you've likely run into conflicts when Git tries to use the wrong identity. The good news is: you can configure two (or more) separate SSH keys and user profiles on the same machine, and even sign your commits properly for each identity.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

  • Creating and configuring multiple SSH keys
  • Setting up Git to use different user accounts per repository
  • Automatically signing commits with the correct GPG key

1. 🔑 Generate SSH Keys for Each Account

Assuming you have no conflicting keys yet, start by generating one for each GitHub account:

# Work account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "you@work.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work

# Personal account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "you@personal.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

This creates two key pairs:

  • ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_wor and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work.pubk
  • ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_persona and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal.publ

2. 🔁 Add SSH Keys to the SSH Agent

Start the agent and add both keys:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

3. ⚙️ Configure the ~/.ssh/config File

# ~/.ssh/config

# Work GitHub
Host github.com-work                     # identifier
  HostName github.com                    # must match the profile host
  User git                               # git is standard user
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work    # your ssh key for this profile

# Personal GitHub
Host github.com-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

This lets you clone like this:

# Personal project
git clone git@github.com-personal:username/personal-repo.git

# Work project
git clone git@github.com-work:company/work-repo.git

4. 👤 Configure Git User Info Per Repo

In each cloned repository, configure the local Git identity:

# Inside work repo
git config user.name "Work Name"
git config user.email "you@work.com"

# Inside personal repo
git config user.name "Personal Name"
git config user.email "you@personal.com"

Optionally, if you want Git to automatically pick identities based on folder paths, use a global include with conditions:

# ~/.gitconfig

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

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

Then in ~/.gitconfig-work:

[user]
  name = Work Name
  email = you@work.com
  signingkey = <your-signing-key>

✅ Done!

Now you can:

  • Use separate SSH keys and emails for each project
  • Avoid identity conflicts on shared machines