find available github username

📜 Table of Contents

• Usage
  • v1 script
  • v2 script
  • Combining both versions
• Project Background
• FAQs
  • Dictionary file name meaning?
  • What is the difference between full dictionary and easy-to-remember?
  • How do I generate a dictionary?
  • How to generate easy-to-remember dictionaries from the full dictionary?
  • How can I exclude those easy-to-remember usernames from the full dictionary?
  • Why are some usernames unavailable checked via v1.sh
  • How to check GitHub API remaining available requests?
  • Is it possible to use it under Windows?
  • How do I find my current username?
  • Is further support available?
• License

Usage

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/oood/find-available-github-usernames.git && cd find-available-github-usernames

v1 script

---

Conditions	Requests per Hour
Username only	60
Username and token	5000

---

1. Generate a Personal Access Token:

   • Register on GitHub and go to Settings > Developer Settings > Personal Access Token to create your token.

2. Edit the script and fill in your current GitHub username and token

USER="" # your_current_username
TOKEN="" # your_api_token

3. Run script

./v1.sh <path to dictionary.txt> <threads>

To stop script, just press ^C (Ctrl+C) or wait until it stops

To get information about api limits:

./v1.sh --api

Response example:

> ./v1.sh --api
TOKEN is empty
Limit: 60
Used: 46
Remaining: 14
Reset time: 2024-10-21 20:11:20

Notes:

The working principle of the script is very simple, import the first line of the dictionary, check whether the username is available, if got HTTP: 404, add it to the v1_found.txt, if encounter an error, print and output to the v1.log, and finally delete all checked lines in the dictionary.

The reason for deleting the lines in the dictionary is to ensure that the task can be terminated at any time by pressing ^c (Ctrl+C) in the terminal and don't have to start from the beginning on the next run.

The first time the script is run, a backup file with a .bak suffix is generated for the dictionary.

v2 script

---

~4200-6000 Requests Per Hour

---

1. Find tokens from GitHub web version.

   • Go to Settings > Account > Change username
   • Open Web DevTools > Network
   • Type something in Choose a new username form
   • Click on rename_check?suggest_usernames=true in Web DevTools
   • Look at Headers and Payload

2. Edit the script and fill in your current tokens

# copy only <token>

# in headers starts with 
# _octo=<token>
TOKEN_1=""

# in headers starts with 
# boundary=----<token>
TOKEN_2="" # updates if you are making a lot of requests

# in headers starts with 
# user_session=<token> 
# or 
# __Host-user_session_same_site=<token>
TOKEN_3=""

# in payload starts with 
# authenticity_token: <token>
TOKEN_4="" # updates if you are making a lot of requests

3. Run script

./v2.sh <path to dictionary.txt> <threads>

GitHub allows you to make 70-100 requests per minute so you can run:

./auto-v2.sh <path to dictionary.txt>

it just runs v2.sh every minute with 100 threads

To stop script, just press ^C (Ctrl+C) or wait until it stops

Combining both versions

Use v1.sh and after what auto-v2.sh with result of v1.sh

./v1 dictionaries/4-characters_easy-to-remember_AAAA-ZZZZ.txt 100

And next

./auto-v2.sh v1_found.txt

result will be in v2_found.txt

---

Project Background

GitHub allows everyone to check user pages, I initially wrote a script and created some dictionaries with character combinations to check all URLs https://github.com/$username. this worked fine at first, but unfortunately after a few minutes I triggered an Error: 429 Too many requests, so I started searching to see if there was a better way, and I found that GitHub provides an API that can be used to retrieve registered username and available username, but I don't have an account how can I get an API token?

There are two ways: First, register an account with any username, then get the API token and then find the appropriate username and modify it. Or bypass the restriction with proxies , which I know is rude, so I chose the first way.

GitHub serves 5,000 requests per hour for users using the API, which seems a bit low considering the short usernames that are still available from millions of usernames, but compared to only 60 requests per IP per hour without the API, that's a huge difference.

I generated the 2-character dictionary and found some "available" usernames, but I found out that they were just reserved usernames, then I tried the 3-character dictionary again, this time I didn't intend to check all 3-characters, because I didn't want to wait too long, and all combinations were already well over the limit of 5,000 per hour, I generated easy-to-remember dictionaries from all combinations, then I didn't find a username that worked for me, and finally I found my current username in a 4-character easy-to-remember dictionary.

FAQs

Dictionary file name meaning?

---

2-characters_00-99_AA-ZZ.txt Consists of 2 characters, including all combinations of letters and digits.

3-characters_AAA-ZZZ.txt and 4-characters_AAAA-ZZZZ.txt Contains all combinations of all 3 and 4 letters, no digits.

XX-characters_easy-to-remember_XX.txt Usernames with repeated characters.

What is the difference between full dictionary and easy-to-remember?

---

I recommend trying the easy-to-remember ones in my dictionaries first, as those that have some kind of regularity, like multiple occurrences of the same character, and easier to type. other dictionaries are full dictionaries, which means they may contain thousands of usernames.

How do I generate a dictionary?

---

For 2 characters:

printf "%s\n" {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z}{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z} > ./2-characters.txt

For 4 characters:

echo {a..z}{a..z}{a..z}{a..z} | tr ' ' '\n' > ./4-characters.txt

How to generate easy-to-remember dictionaries from the full dictionary?

---

grep '\(.\).*\1' 3-characters_AAA-ZZZ.txt > ./3-characters_easy-to-remember_AAA-ZZZ.txt

grep '\(.\).*\1.*\1' 4-characters_AAAA-ZZZZ.txt > ./4-characters_easy-to-remember_AAAA-ZZZZ.txt

This will extract usernames that have the same letter repeated multiple times, like aaa, aab, aba...

How can I exclude those easy-to-remember usernames from the full dictionary?

---

comm -23 ./dictionary.txt ./easy-to-remember.txt > ./easy-to-remember-excluded.txt

Why are some usernames unavailable checked via v1.sh?

---

GitHub may for some reason keep some usernames that are not open for registration, such as 47, fr, ccc, although I found a lot of 2-character and 3-character usernames when I tried to register, but they were not available, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try those 2 and 3-character usernames, because at any time a user could delete their account or change their username, so you might have better luck than me.

The v2.sh script utilizes the https://github.com/account/rename_check endpoint to verify the availability of these usernames.

How to check GitHub API remaining available requests?

---

./v1.sh --api

or

curl -i -u "$USER:$TOKEN" -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" https://api.github.com/rate_limit

Is it possible to use it under Windows?

---

It should work fine with WSL and some 3rd party Linux tools (Cygwin or Git bash).

How do I find my current username?

---

1. In the GitHub Desktop menu, click Preferences.

2. In the Preferences window, verify the following:

   • To view your GitHub username, click Accounts.

Is further support available?

---

No, I'm not going to use my time to continue developing and contributing to this repository, it's just a sharing of some experiences, if you're interested you can create something better!

License

This project is available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) License, allowing anyone to use, modify, and distribute the work without restrictions.