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Unpublishing a GitHub Pages site

In this article

You can unpublish your GitHub Pages site so that your current deployment is removed and the site is no longer available. This is different from deleting the site.

Who can use this feature

People with admin or maintainer permissions for a repository can unpublish a GitHub Pages site.

GitHub Pages is available in public repositories with GitHub Free and GitHub Free for organizations, and in public and private repositories with GitHub Pro, GitHub Team, GitHub Enterprise Cloud, and GitHub Enterprise Server.

When you unpublish your site, your current deployment is removed and the site will no longer be available. Any existing repository settings or content will not be affected.

Unpublishing a site does not permanently delete the site. For information on deleting a site, see "Deleting a GitHub Pages site."

Unpublishing a project site

  1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. If a gh-pages branch exists in the repository, delete the gh-pages branch. For more information, see "Creating and deleting branches within your repository."

  3. If the gh-pages branch was your publishing source, your site is now unpublished and you can skip the remaining steps.

  4. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

    Screenshot of a repository header showing the tabs. The "Settings" tab is highlighted by a dark orange outline.

  5. In the "Code and automation" section of the sidebar, click Pages.

  6. Under "GitHub Pages", use the branch dropdown menu and select None. Screenshot of Pages settings in a GitHub repository. A menu to select a branch for a publishing source, labeled "None," is outlined in dark orange.

Unpublishing a user or organization site

  1. On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.
  2. Delete the branch that you're using as a publishing source, or delete the entire repository. For more information, see "Creating and deleting branches within your repository" and "Deleting a repository."

Re-enabling a site that has been unpublished

Unpublishing your GitHub Pages site removes your current deployment. To make your site available again, you can create a new deployment.

Re-enabling a project site

  1. Configure your publishing source to publish from a branch of your choosing. For more information, see "Configuring a publishing source for your GitHub Pages site."
  2. Commit to your publishing source to create a new deployment.

Re-enabling a user or organization site

Because your publishing source was deleted during unpublishing, you will need to create a new publishing source and configure a new GitHub Pages site. For more information, see "Configuring a publishing source for your GitHub Pages site."