diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 456f553..90fb41e 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ Imports:
   stringr,
   tidyr,
   gitcreds,
+  gh,
   knitr,
   purrr,
   rmarkdown,
@@ -32,7 +33,7 @@ Imports:
   spelling,
   xml2,
   R.utils,
-  googledrive, 
+  googledrive,
   jsonlite,
   yaml
 Suggests:
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index d1c2ff3..243d49b 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ export(unzip_pptx)
 export(website_to_embed_leanpub)
 export(xml_notes)
 import(dplyr)
+import(gh)
 import(rvest)
 import(stringr)
 importFrom(dplyr,"%>%")
@@ -78,6 +79,7 @@ importFrom(knitr,opts_knit)
 importFrom(readr,write_tsv)
 importFrom(rprojroot,find_root)
 importFrom(rprojroot,has_dir)
+importFrom(rprojroot,has_file)
 importFrom(rvest,html_attr)
 importFrom(rvest,html_nodes)
 importFrom(rvest,read_html)
diff --git a/R/borrow_chapter.R b/R/borrow_chapter.R
index 1e8a4d5..94faef8 100644
--- a/R/borrow_chapter.R
+++ b/R/borrow_chapter.R
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 #' you may want to share written material between the two.
 #' But, if you copy and paste to share material this would create a maintenance
 #' problem because if you update one you will need to remember to copy over the
-#' other! 
+#' other!
 #' To borrow a chapter from another course, create an .Rmd as you normally would,
 #'  with an [`H1` title](https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax/) if you wish.
 #' Then in a code chunk, use cow::borrow_chapter() to have the content from an
@@ -113,6 +113,8 @@ borrow_chapter <- function(doc_path,
       }
     }
 
+    message("Got to here")
+
     # Piece together URL
     full_url <- file.path(base_url, repo_name, branch, doc_path)
 
@@ -156,8 +158,13 @@ borrow_chapter <- function(doc_path,
       )
     }
   }
+
+  message("Also got to here")
+
   writeLines(file_contents, dest_file)
 
+  message("and wrote lines")
+  
   # Get parent directory
   parent_dir <- knitr::opts_knit$get("output.dir")
 
diff --git a/R/github_handling.R b/R/github_handling.R
index c6a6810..96f0a35 100644
--- a/R/github_handling.R
+++ b/R/github_handling.R
@@ -198,6 +198,8 @@ get_repo_info <- function(repo_name,
 #' @return A TRUE/FALSE whether or not the repository exists. Optionally the
 #' output from git ls-remote if return_repo = TRUE.
 #'
+#' @import gh
+#'
 #' @export
 #'
 #' @examples \dontrun{
@@ -216,14 +218,20 @@ check_git_repo <- function(repo_name,
   # If silent = TRUE don't print out the warning message from the 'try'
   report <- ifelse(silent, suppressWarnings, message)
 
+  repo_info <- try(gh::gh(paste0("/repos/", repo_name)), silent=TRUE)
+  if (length(repo_info) == 1){
+    if (class(repo_info) == "try-error"){
+      stop("Can't validate if the repo is private or not")
+  }}
+
   # Try to get credentials other way
-  if (is.null(token)) {
+  if (is.null(token) & repo_info$private) {
     # Get auth token
     token <- get_token(app_name = "github")
   }
 
   # Run git ls-remote
-  if (!grepl("Error", token[1])) {
+  if (isTRUE(!grepl("Error", token[1]))) {
     # If token is supplied, use it
     test_repo <- report(
       try(system(paste0("git ls-remote https://", token, "@github.com/", repo_name),