How to fix warning: unable to create symbolic link: Permission denied in Git

Windows 10 version 1703 and later allows unprivileged symlink creation when Developer Mode is enabled. This is the simplest and most persistent solution.

Steps to enable Developer Mode:

1. Open Settings (Windows key + I)
2. Navigate to Update & Security (Windows 10) or Privacy & Security (Windows 11)
3. Click For developers
4. Toggle Developer Mode to On
5. Confirm the prompt if asked

Using PowerShell (requires Admin):

# Enable Developer Mode via registry
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock" /t REG_DWORD /f /v "AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense" /d "1"

After enabling Developer Mode, restart your terminal and try cloning or checking out again.

Verify it's enabled:

# Check Developer Mode status
reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock" /v AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense

If the value is 0x1, Developer Mode is enabled.

Git on Windows may have symlink support disabled by default. You need to ensure it's enabled in your Git configuration.

Check current symlink setting:

git config --global core.symlinks

If it returns false or nothing, enable it:

Enable symlinks globally:

git config --global core.symlinks true

Enable symlinks for a specific repository:

cd /path/to/repo
git config core.symlinks true

Important: Changing this setting doesn't automatically fix existing files. You'll need to re-checkout the affected files:

# Re-checkout all files to apply symlink setting
git checkout -- .

# Or for a clean start
git reset --hard HEAD

Verify symlinks were created:

# List files and their types (symlinks show with 'l' prefix)
ls -la

# Or check a specific file
file path/to/suspected/symlink

If you installed Git for Windows without symlink support, you may need to reinstall it with the correct option enabled.

During Git installation:

1. Download Git for Windows from https://git-scm.com/download/win
2. Run the installer
3. When you reach the Configuring extra options screen, check the box:
"Enable symbolic links"
4. Complete the installation

Using winget:

# Uninstall existing Git
winget uninstall Git.Git

# Reinstall (you'll still need to check the symlinks option in the installer)
winget install Git.Git

Using Chocolatey:

# Install with symlink support
choco install git --params "/GitAndUnixToolsOnPath /NoShellIntegration /SChannel /WindowsTerminal /Symlinks"

After reinstalling, restart your terminal and run:

git config --global core.symlinks

This should now return true.

If you can't enable Developer Mode (e.g., on a managed corporate machine), you can run Git with elevated privileges to create symlinks.

Running Git Bash as Administrator:

1. Right-click on Git Bash in the Start menu
2. Select Run as administrator
3. Click Yes on the UAC prompt
4. Navigate to your repository and clone/checkout

Running Command Prompt as Administrator:

1. Press Windows key + X
2. Select Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin)
3. Run your Git commands from there

Running VS Code as Administrator:

1. Right-click on VS Code
2. Select Run as administrator
3. Open your repository folder

Note: Running as Administrator is not a good long-term solution because:
- It's inconvenient for daily work
- It poses security risks
- Some tools may behave unexpectedly with elevated privileges

Use this as a temporary workaround while you implement a permanent solution like Developer Mode.

On Windows Pro, Enterprise, or Server editions, you can grant your user account the right to create symbolic links without Administrator privileges.

Using Local Security Policy (secpol.msc):

1. Press Windows key + R, type secpol.msc, and press Enter
2. Navigate to: Local Policies > User Rights Assignment
3. Double-click Create symbolic links
4. Click Add User or Group
5. Add your username or a group you belong to
6. Click OK and close the windows
7. Log out and log back in for changes to take effect

Using PowerShell (requires Admin):

# Add current user to SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege
$identity = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()
$principal = New-Object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal($identity)
$user = $identity.Name

# This requires the Carbon PowerShell module
Install-Module Carbon -Force
Import-Module Carbon
Grant-CPrivilege -Identity $user -Privilege SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege

Using ntrights.exe (from Windows Resource Kit):

ntrights +r SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege -u YourUsername

Note: On Windows Home edition, secpol.msc is not available. Use Developer Mode instead.

If you fixed the permissions after an initial clone, the repository already contains regular files instead of symlinks. You need to re-clone or reset to get proper symlinks.

Option 1: Re-clone the repository

# Move or delete the old clone
mv repo repo-old
# or: rm -rf repo

# Clone fresh with symlinks enabled
git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git

Option 2: Reset existing repository

cd repo

# Ensure symlinks are enabled
git config core.symlinks true

# Remove all tracked files and re-checkout
git checkout -- .

# If that doesn't work, do a hard reset
git reset --hard HEAD

Option 3: Remove and restore specific symlinks

# Remove the fake symlink file
rm path/to/symlink

# Restore it from Git
git checkout -- path/to/symlink

# Verify it's now a real symlink
ls -la path/to/symlink

Verify symlinks are working:

# On Windows Git Bash, symlinks show as 'lrwxrwxrwx'
ls -la

# Check symlink target
readlink path/to/symlink

If you cannot enable symlink support and only need to link directories, NTFS junctions are an alternative that doesn't require special permissions.

Note: This is a workaround, not a Git-native solution. Junctions only work for directories, not files.

Creating a junction manually:

mklink /J "link-name" "target-directory"

PowerShell:

New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "link-name" -Target "target-directory"

Limitations of junctions:
- Only work for directories, not files
- Must point to absolute paths (relative paths converted at creation)
- Only work on NTFS filesystems
- Git doesn't natively understand junctions

For projects you control:

If you maintain the repository, consider whether symlinks are truly necessary on Windows, or if you can:
- Use relative paths in configuration files
- Create Windows-specific setup scripts
- Document Windows setup requirements in README