Searching in forks

By default, forks are not shown in search results. You can choose to include them in repository searches, and in code searches if they meet certain criteria.

In this article

To show forks in repository search results, add fork:true or fork:only to your query. For more information, see Searching for repositories.

Note

Forks can only be included in repository and code searches.

The fork:true qualifier finds all results that match your search query, including forks. The fork:only qualifier finds only forks that match your search query.

QualifierExample
fork:truegithub fork:true matches all repositories containing the word "github," including forks.
fork:onlygithub fork:only matches all fork repositories containing the word "github."
forks:>n fork:onlyforks:>500 fork:only matches repositories with more than 500 forks, and only returns those that are forks.

GitHub code search uses is:fork instead of fork:true to include forked repositories in code search results. To exclude forks, use NOT is:fork. For more information, see Understanding GitHub Code Search syntax.

QualifierExample
is:forkandroid language:java is:fork matches code with the word "android" that's written in Java, in forked repositories.
NOT is:forkandroid language:java NOT is:fork matches code with the word "android" that's written in Java, excluding forked repositories.

Further reading