In addition to providing downloadable source code archives, GitHub previously allowed you to upload files (separate from the versioned files) in the repository, and make it available for download in the Downloads Tab. Supporting these types of uploads was a source of great confusion and pain – they were too similar to the files in a Git repository. As part of our ongoing effort to keep GitHub focused on building software, we are deprecating the Downloads Tab.

  • The ability to upload new files via the web site is disabled today.
  • Existing links to previously uploaded files will continue to work for the foreseeable future.
  • Repositories that already have uploads will continue to list their downloads for the next 90 days (tack on /downloads to the end of any repository to see them).
  • The Downloads API is officially deprecated and will be disabled in 90 days.

Update (December 5, 2013):

  • The Downloads API is officially deprecated and will be disabled at a future date.

Onward

We encourage you to continue distributing your code through downloadable source code archives. However, some projects need to host and distribute large binary files in addition to source archives.

Check out Releases!