importing repos into Gitea

created on

August 29, 2025

Repos that have been created outside gitea can be imported, or in Gitea speak adopted, and managed by Gitea. I’m using both terms import and adopt here.

organization of repo files in Gitea

Gitea stores repos (the repo’s files) in the repo root dir of Gitea, which is defined in gitea.conf, section [repository], config value ROOT, i.e.:

The path for a repo within gitea’s repo root is <organization|owner>/<repo name>, i.e. debian/userfiles or alice/shell.

importing repos into Gitea

For an organization or owner, multiple repos can be imported in a row.

Copy the repo (or multiple repos) to import into the appropriate repo dir within the gitea root.

Go to Site Administration, Code Assets, Repositories. In the Repository Management panel, click on Unadopted Repositories.

In the Unadopted Repositories dialog, enter the name of the organization or owner for which the repo is to be imported, and click on the search icon.

The Unadopted Repositories dialog lists all unadopted repos in the repo directory of the corresponding organization/owner:

Click on Adopt Files for each unadopted repo and confirm to import the repo by clicking on Yes in the Adopt pre-existing files dialog. I do find the “Create repository from debian/packages” somewhat irritating, “Adopt/import repository from …” would be more suitable.

Successful import/adoption is indicated by a green bar at the top of the Unadopted Repositories dialog, which contains the message “Adopted files and created repository from …”. The imported is removed from the list of unadopted repos.

Repeat the import of repos until the list of unadopted repos is empty. Done.