How to Use Personal Access Token in Sourcetree

Updated on:

May 13, 2026

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Use this interactive demo to learn how to authenticate Sourcetree with a Personal Access Token.

Quick summary

A Personal Access Token (PAT) replaces your password for Sourcetree authentication, allowing secure access to remote repositories like GitHub. This guide walks you through updating your account credentials in Sourcetree to use a PAT in just a few steps.

Steps

Click the 'Remote' tab in Sourcetree to access your remote account settings.
Choose the account you want to update and click 'Edit account'.
In the 'Credentials' section, click 'Authentication' and select 'Personal Access Token' from the options.
Click 'Refresh Personal Access Token' and paste your PAT in place of your GitHub password.
Click 'OK' to confirm and save your updated credentials.

📌 Why this matters

Using a Personal Access Token (PAT) in Sourcetree is essential for developers who need secure, password-free authentication with remote Git repositories like GitHub. Since GitHub deprecated password-based authentication, configuring a PAT in Sourcetree ensures uninterrupted access to push, pull, and clone operations. PATs offer granular permission control and can be revoked independently, making them a safer alternative to account passwords. Setting up PAT authentication in Sourcetree takes under a minute and is a critical step for any developer managing code through a Git GUI client.

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