# man > GIT-AM(1) > **TLDR:** Apply patch files and create a commit. Useful when receiving commits via email. > - Apply and commit changes following a local patch file: `git am {{path/to/file.patch}}` - Apply and commit changes following a remote patch file: `curl {{-L|--location}} {{https://example.com/file.patch}} | git am` - Abort the process of applying a patch file: `git am --abort` - Apply as much of a patch file as possible, saving failed hunks to reject files: `git am --reject {{path/to/file.patch}}` *Source: tldr-pages* --- [_GIT-AM_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/GIT-AM/1/markdown) Git Manual [_GIT-AM_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/GIT-AM/1/markdown) ## 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 | --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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-format-patch/1/markdown) 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-commit/1/markdown) for more information. ### -k, --keep Pass **-k **flag to _git_ _mailinfo_ (see [**git-mailinfo**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). ### --keep-non-patch Pass **-b **flag to _git_ _mailinfo_ (see [**git-mailinfo**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). --[no-]keep-cr With **--keep-cr**, call _git_ _mailsplit_ (see [**git-mailsplit**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailsplit/1/markdown)) 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). Can be activated by default using the **mailinfo.scissors **configuration variable. ### --no-scissors Ignore scissors lines (see [**git-mailinfo**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). --quoted-cr= This flag will be passed down to _git_ _mailinfo_ (see [**git-mailinfo**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). --empty=(stop|drop|keep) By default, or when the option is set to _stop_, the command errors out on an input e-mail message lacking a patch and stops in the middle of the current am session. When this option is set to _drop_, skip such an e-mail message instead. When this option is set to _keep_, create an empty commit, recording the contents of the e-mail message as its log. ### -m, --message-id Pass the **-m **flag to _git_ _mailinfo_ (see [**git-mailinfo**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)), 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-mailinfo/1/markdown)). -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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown). ### --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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-apply/1/markdown)) program that applies the patch. ### --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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/githooks/5/markdown). ### --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[], --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. ### --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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/githooks/5/markdown) for more information. ## CONFIGURATION Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from the [**git-config**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-config/1/markdown) 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-am/1/markdown), **git-** [**mailsplit**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mailsplit/1/markdown). 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-am/1/markdown). ## SEE ALSO [**git-apply**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-apply/1/markdown), [**git-format-patch**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git-format-patch/1/markdown). ## GIT Part of the [**git**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/git/1/markdown) suite Git 2.43.0 07/02/2025 [_GIT-AM_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/GIT-AM/1/markdown)