How to modify ~/.ssh folder & files in windows?

This answer for Windows environment:

At the beginning, Windows didn't have .ssh folder.

When your run command for creating a ssh key like this:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "[email protected]" (must run your terminal as administrator).

Your is_rsa and id_rsa.pub files will be placed under C:\Users\your_username\

So, you need to create folder C:\Users\your_username\.ssh yourself then copy the ssh files to there. You also have to create file C:\Users\your_username.ssh\config and edit it for the first time.

Next ssh will be placed under the .ssh folder automatically.

Note: ~/ is the same as C:\Users\your_username\ on Windows

I have created and regularly use a ".ssh" directory on Windows 7; as mentioned in the above comments, Windows Explorer doesn't support them, or more specifically, the error-checking in Windows Explorer does not allow you to give a file name that starts with a period. That same restriction does not exist in the command prompt or powershell.

Also, as mentioned above, it appears you have a file called ".ssh" in your home directory, which must be removed before you can create a folder named ".ssh".

Once such a folder exists, you can open it and change/create files in it using Windows Explorer; it just won't let you name a folder/file ".ssh" directly.

Gitbash should directly allow you to run "rm .ssh" and "mkdir .ssh", at which point everything else should work.