fatal: could not create work tree dir 'kivy'

You should do the command in a directory where you have write permission. So:

cd ~/
mkdir code
cd code
git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy

For example.

The directory in which you are trying to write the file or taking the clone of git repository, it does not has the write permission. That's why this problem is occurring.
Please change the write permission of directory.
Then clone the repository.

If you are working in Windows you have to change the permissions of the directory putting full permissions or just write to let github clone the repository. The steps are:

1. Go To your directory
2. open properties
3. go to tab "security"
4. change the permissions
5. apply

In my case what happened was that the user I was using had no ownership over the directory. I simply had to change ownership of the directory to that user. For example if user is ubuntu:

chown ubuntu:ubuntu -R directory-in-question


cd directory-in-question/


git clone <git repo comes here >

Your current directory does not has the write/create permission to create kivy directory, thats why occuring this problem.

Your current directory give 777 rights and try it.

sudo chmod 777 DIR_NAME
cd DIR_NAME
git clone https://github.com/mygitusername/kivy.git

For other Beginners (like myself) If you are on windows running git as admin also solves the problem.

I had the same error on Debian and all I had to do was:

sudo su

and then run the command again and it worked.

This does happened also when you are cloning a repo without selecting any working directory. just make sure you did cd into your working directory and i believe it will work just fine.

sudo chmod 777 DIR_NAME
cd DIR_NAME
git clone https://github.com/mygitusername/kivy.git

should work fine

Assuming that you are using Windows, run the application as Admin.

For that, you have at least two options:

• Open the file location, right click and select "Run as Administrator".

• Using Windows Start menu, search for "Git Bash", and you will find the following:

Then, just press "Run as Administrator".

All you need to do is Run your terminal as Administrator. in my case, that's how I solve my problem.

You need to ensure you are in a directory in which you have write permission. This might not be the directory in which Git is in once you open the terminal. In my case (Widows 10) I had to use the cd command to change the directory to the root directory (C:) After that it worked just fine.

If you are working on a mac, then this is probably because you don't have permission to write to the directory. When I had this issue, I followed the following steps:

• Opened the folder in finder -> right-click -> get info -> click on the lock on the bottom right of the pop up window, enter admin password -> then change the Sharing and Permissions to Read and Write for wheel, and everyone -> click lock again to save

For me it was turning off Realtime Protection on the Virus and Threat Protection on Windows.