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Update April 2013, git 1.8.3:

You now can use an encrypted .netrc (with gpg).

A new read-only credential helper (in contrib/) to interact with the .netrc/.authinfo files has been added.

That script would allow you to use gpg-encrypted netrc files, avoiding the issue of having your credentials stored in a plain text file.

Update late 2012, With git version 1.7.9+: This answer from Mark Longair details the credential cache mechanism which allows you to not store your password in plain text as shown below.

(Original answer)

You must define:

• environment variable %HOME%
• put a _netrc file in %HOME%

If you are using Windows 7

run the cmd type this:

setx HOME %USERPROFILE%

and the %HOME% will be set to 'C:\Users\"username"'

then go to it and make a file called '_netrc'

Note: for Windows, you need a '_netrc' file, not a '.netrc'.

Its content is quite standard (Replace the with your values):

machine <hostname1>
login <login1>
password <password1>
machine <hostname2>
login <login2>
password <password2>

Luke mentions in the comments:

Using the latest version of msysgit on Windows 7, I did not need to set the HOME environment variable. The _netrc file alone did the trick.

This is indeed what I mentioned in "Trying to "install" github, .ssh dir not there":
git-cmd.bat included in msysgit does set the %HOME% environment variable:

@if not exist "%HOME%" @set HOME=%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%
@if not exist "%HOME%" @set HOME=%USERPROFILE%

爱国者 believes in the comments that "it seems that it won't work for http protocol"

However, I answered that netrc is used by curl, and works for http protocol, as shown in this example (look for 'netrc' in the page): . Also used with http protocol here: "_netrc/.netrc alternative to cURL".

A common trap with with netrc support on Windows is that git will bypass using it if an origin https url specifies a user name.

For example, if your .git/config file contains:

[remote "origin"]
 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
 url = https://[email protected]/p/my-project/

Git will not resolve your credentials via _netrc, to fix this remove your username, like so:

[remote "origin"]
 fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
 url = https://code.google.com/p/my-project/