you can only transfer a repository from an organization to yourself at this time error message

[chlin501]

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We encounter an issue when we try transferring a repo to a personal account, which is not part of the organization. The error message is you can only transfer a repository from an organization to yourself at this time. No other messages or clues that can help us troubleshoot this error. Searching on the internet does not find any solutions; some solutions found on the internet is not what we want e.g. forking the repo to personal acct, then transferring the repo. Also, searching in this community with is:open category:Repositories you can only transfer a repository from an organization to yourself at this time do not find any similar questions as well.

I checked the document and no permission we find would block this operation. For instance,

• We have administrator access to the repo
• The target account is another account in GitHub.com
• No repo with the same name in the target account, or fork in the same network
• The repo is not from upstream private network

What could be the issue preventing us from transferring the github repo in the organization to another account in github.com? Thanks

[chlin501]

Thanks for the information. I checked the points you mentioned

• We have administrative access to the repository we wish to transfer - We have Direct Access with Admin role.
• The repository is transferred from the GitHub organization to a GitHub user.
• The repository is going to be transferred to a GitHub account, not organization, so there should have no collaborators issues.
• The destination is a GitHub account, not GitHub organization, so there should have no collaborator seats problem.

I don't see any points that would block the transferation. Maybe something I misunderstand? Or anything I may miss or should doulbe check? Thanks

[orbeckst]

Following StackOverflow answer "Who is allowed to transfer a repo ownership" by Yedidel Elhayany I did the following

1. transfer repo from org to my own personal account
2. transfer repo from personal account to target account

This approach seems to work around the orginal failure to transfer from org to target account.

[chlin501]

Thanks. But for some reasons that I can't transfer the repo from org to my personal account. Otherwise, this should be way to go. Many thanks for the advice!