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=<action>] [-C<n>] [-p<n>] [--directory=<dir>]
[--exclude=<path>] [--include=<path>] [--reject] [-q | --quiet]
[--[no-]scissors] [-S[<keyid>]] [--patch-format=<format>]
[--quoted-cr=<action>]
[--empty=(stop|drop|keep)]
[(<mbox> | <Maildir>)...]
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
(<mbox>|<Maildir>)...
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)).
--[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=<action>
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=<action>,
-C<n>, -p<n>, --directory=<dir>, --exclude=<path>, --include=<path>,
--reject
These flags are passed to the git apply (see git-apply(1)) program
that applies the patch.
Valid <action> 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.
--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[<keyid>], --gpg-sign[=<keyid>], --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=<msg>
When a patch failure occurs, <msg> 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 <anything>]". 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 2.51.0 2025-08-17 GIT-AM(1)
git am \- Apply a series of patches from a mailbox