Manual: git-am
GIT-AM(1) Git Manual GIT-AM(1)
NAME
git-am - Apply a series of patches from a mailbox
SYNOPSIS
git am [--signoff] [--keep] [--[no-]keep-cr] [--[no-]utf8] [--no-verify]
[--[no-]3way] [--interactive] [--committer-date-is-author-date]
[--ignore-date] [--ignore-space-change | --ignore-whitespace]
[--whitespace=] [-C] [-p] [--directory=]
[--exclude=] [--include=] [--reject] [-q | --quiet]
[--[no-]scissors] [-S[]] [--patch-format=]
[--quoted-cr=]
[--empty=(stop|drop|keep)]
[( | )...]
git am (--continue | --skip | --abort | --quit | --retry | --show-current-patch[=(diff|raw)] | --allow-empty)
DESCRIPTION
Splits mail messages in a mailbox into commit log messages, authorship information, and patches, and
applies them to the current branch. You could think of it as a reverse operation of git-format-
patch(1) run on a branch with a straight history without merges.
OPTIONS
(|)...
The list of mailbox files to read patches from. If you do not supply this argument, the command
reads from the standard input. If you supply directories, they will be treated as Maildirs.
-s, --signoff
Add a Signed-off-by trailer to the commit message, using the committer identity of yourself. See
the signoff option in git-commit(1) for more information.
-k, --keep
Pass -k flag to git mailinfo (see git-mailinfo(1)).
--keep-non-patch
Pass -b flag to git mailinfo (see git-mailinfo(1)).
--keep-cr, --no-keep-cr
With --keep-cr, call git mailsplit (see git-mailsplit(1)) with the same option, to prevent it
from stripping CR at the end of lines. am.keepcr configuration variable can be used to specify
the default behaviour. --no-keep-cr is useful to override am.keepcr.
-c, --scissors
Remove everything in body before a scissors line (see git-mailinfo(1)). Can be activated by
default using the mailinfo.scissors configuration variable.
--no-scissors
Ignore scissors lines (see git-mailinfo(1)).
--quoted-cr=
This flag will be passed down to git mailinfo (see git-mailinfo(1)).
--empty=(drop|keep|stop)
How to handle an e-mail message lacking a patch:
drop
The e-mail message will be skipped.
keep
An empty commit will be created, with the contents of the e-mail message as its log.
stop
The command will fail, stopping in the middle of the current am session. This is the default
behavior.
-m, --message-id
Pass the -m flag to git mailinfo (see git-mailinfo(1)), so that the Message-ID header is added to
the commit message. The am.messageid configuration variable can be used to specify the default
behaviour.
--no-message-id
Do not add the Message-ID header to the commit message. no-message-id is useful to override
am.messageid.
-q, --quiet
Be quiet. Only print error messages.
-u, --utf8
Pass -u flag to git mailinfo (see git-mailinfo(1)). The proposed commit log message taken from
the e-mail is re-coded into UTF-8 encoding (configuration variable i18n.commitEncoding can be
used to specify the project’s preferred encoding if it is not UTF-8).
This was optional in prior versions of git, but now it is the default. You can use --no-utf8 to
override this.
--no-utf8
Pass -n flag to git mailinfo (see git-mailinfo(1)).
-3, --3way, --no-3way
When the patch does not apply cleanly, fall back on 3-way merge if the patch records the identity
of blobs it is supposed to apply to and we have those blobs available locally. --no-3way can be
used to override am.threeWay configuration variable. For more information, see am.threeWay in
git-config(1).
--rerere-autoupdate, --no-rerere-autoupdate
After the rerere mechanism reuses a recorded resolution on the current conflict to update the
files in the working tree, allow it to also update the index with the result of resolution.
--no-rerere-autoupdate is a good way to double-check what rerere did and catch potential
mismerges, before committing the result to the index with a separate git add.
--ignore-space-change, --ignore-whitespace, --whitespace=, -C, -p, --directory=,
--exclude=, --include=, --reject
These flags are passed to the git apply (see git-apply(1)) program that applies the patch.
Valid for the --whitespace option are: nowarn, warn, fix, error, and error-all.
--patch-format
By default the command will try to detect the patch format automatically. This option allows the
user to bypass the automatic detection and specify the patch format that the patch(es) should be
interpreted as. Valid formats are mbox, mboxrd, stgit, stgit-series, and hg.
-i, --interactive
Run interactively.
-n, --no-verify
By default, the pre-applypatch and applypatch-msg hooks are run. When any of --no-verify or -n is
given, these are bypassed. See also githooks(5).
--committer-date-is-author-date
By default the command records the date from the e-mail message as the commit author date, and
uses the time of commit creation as the committer date. This allows the user to lie about the
committer date by using the same value as the author date.
Warning
The history walking machinery assumes that commits have non-decreasing commit timestamps. You
should consider if you really need to use this option. Then you should only use this option
to override the committer date when applying commits on top of a base which commit is older
(in terms of the commit date) than the oldest patch you are applying.
--ignore-date
By default the command records the date from the e-mail message as the commit author date, and
uses the time of commit creation as the committer date. This allows the user to lie about the
author date by using the same value as the committer date.
--skip
Skip the current patch. This is only meaningful when restarting an aborted patch.
-S[], --gpg-sign[=], --no-gpg-sign
GPG-sign commits. The keyid argument is optional and defaults to the committer identity; if
specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space. --no-gpg-sign is useful to
countermand both commit.gpgSign configuration variable, and earlier --gpg-sign.
--continue, -r, --resolved
After a patch failure (e.g. attempting to apply conflicting patch), the user has applied it by
hand and the index file stores the result of the application. Make a commit using the authorship
and commit log extracted from the e-mail message and the current index file, and continue.
--resolvemsg=
When a patch failure occurs, will be printed to the screen before exiting. This overrides
the standard message informing you to use --continue or --skip to handle the failure. This is
solely for internal use between git rebase and git am.
--abort
Restore the original branch and abort the patching operation. Revert the contents of files
involved in the am operation to their pre-am state.
--quit
Abort the patching operation but keep HEAD and the index untouched.
--retry
Try to apply the last conflicting patch again. This is generally only useful for passing extra
options to the retry attempt (e.g., --3way), since otherwise you’ll just see the same failure
again.
--show-current-patch[=(diff|raw)]
Show the message at which git am has stopped due to conflicts. If raw is specified, show the raw
contents of the e-mail message; if diff, show the diff portion only. Defaults to raw.
--allow-empty
After a patch failure on an input e-mail message lacking a patch, create an empty commit with the
contents of the e-mail message as its log message.
DISCUSSION
The commit author name is taken from the "From: " line of the message, and commit author date is
taken from the "Date: " line of the message. The "Subject: " line is used as the title of the commit,
after stripping common prefix "[PATCH ]". The "Subject: " line is supposed to concisely
describe what the commit is about in one line of text.
"From: ", "Date: ", and "Subject: " lines starting the body override the respective commit author
name and title values taken from the headers.
The commit message is formed by the title taken from the "Subject: ", a blank line and the body of
the message up to where the patch begins. Excess whitespace at the end of each line is automatically
stripped.
The patch is expected to be inline, directly following the message. Any line that is of the form:
• three-dashes and end-of-line, or
• a line that begins with "diff -", or
• a line that begins with "Index: "
is taken as the beginning of a patch, and the commit log message is terminated before the first
occurrence of such a line.
When initially invoking git am, you give it the names of the mailboxes to process. Upon seeing the
first patch that does not apply, it aborts in the middle. You can recover from this in one of two
ways:
1. skip the current patch by re-running the command with the --skip option.
2. hand resolve the conflict in the working directory, and update the index file to bring it into a
state that the patch should have produced. Then run the command with the --continue option.
The command refuses to process new mailboxes until the current operation is finished, so if you
decide to start over from scratch, run git am --abort before running the command with mailbox names.
Before any patches are applied, ORIG_HEAD is set to the tip of the current branch. This is useful if
you have problems with multiple commits, like running git am on the wrong branch or an error in the
commits that is more easily fixed by changing the mailbox (e.g. errors in the "From:" lines).
HOOKS
This command can run applypatch-msg, pre-applypatch, and post-applypatch hooks. See githooks(5) for
more information.
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from the git-config(1)
documentation. The content is the same as what’s found there:
am.keepcr
If true, git-am will call git-mailsplit for patches in mbox format with parameter --keep-cr. In
this case git-mailsplit will not remove \r from lines ending with \r\n. Can be overridden by
giving --no-keep-cr from the command line. See git-am(1), git-mailsplit(1).
am.threeWay
By default, git am will fail if the patch does not apply cleanly. When set to true, this setting
tells git am to fall back on 3-way merge if the patch records the identity of blobs it is
supposed to apply to and we have those blobs available locally (equivalent to giving the --3way
option from the command line). Defaults to false. See git-am(1).
SEE ALSO
git-apply(1), git-format-patch(1).
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.53.0 03/02/2026 GIT-AM(1)