In Sourcetree Clone, what is the significance of "Local Folder:" (default [Root])?

[Eric Anderson]

When cloning via Sourcetree -> File -> Clone / New...
it asks for "Local Folder:" and has a choice menu with a single default value of "[Root]".

It doesn't seem that this can serve to specify the local destination folder, since it has already asked for "Destination Path:" and has that information.  Likewise, it has already separately asked for the "Name:" of the new repository.

Nor does it seem that likely that the default value of "[Root]" can refer to the local root folder of my local computer drive.

So what is the point of "Local Folder:" that is not supplied by the other input fields?  What would be the significance of "[Root]" or of choosing something other than "[Root]" (if there were other menu options besides that)?  For that matter, how would one even add more options to that choice menu, for situations where something else should be chosen?

(If it matters, I am using Windows Sourcetree Version 3.2.6 while I wait for certain bugs in higher versions to be fixed.)

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

The local folder is where Sourcetree will store the bookmark of your repository, so you can organize your repositories the way you like it. You can add new folders if you go to your repositories and then just right-click in there.

[Eric Anderson]

Thanks for this initial clarification.  But as I mentioned, the only menu entry (at least initially) is the choice "[Root]".  When I use Windows Explorer to look at the local root folder of my laptop, I don't find anything there that resembles what you describe.

After thinking about it more, are you perhaps describing a local folder in Sourcetree's  own hierarchical organization of bookmarks within the application interface (not the local folder in the local system's folders)?

When you say, "go to your repositories and then right-click in there", I now realize you don't mean the actual repositories on disk, but instead I think you are referring to the spot in the Sourcetree representation of repository bookmarks in the application UI where (I see now) one can create folders to organize the bookmarks "the way you like it" (even though this is not physically changing the organization of the repositories themselves in the local system's folders.

The reason I can only pick "[Root]" (for now) is because I haven't yet created any other bookmark folders that I could choose.

Since I haven't considered making folders of bookmarks, that made the references to "local folders" seem to be about local folders on my laptop.  Now this makes much more sense.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Correct, the folder in Sourcetree is an internal folder and has nothing to do with your windows folders. I wish they renamed it to something like bookmark folder, on Mac it is called Repository group.