The output from linkgit:git-format-patch[1] can lead to a different commit message when applied with linkgit:git-am[1]. The patch that is applied may also be different from the one that was generated, or patch application may fail outright. ifdef::git-am[] See the <> section above for the syntactic rules. endif::git-am[] ifndef::git-am[] include::format-patch-end-of-commit-message.adoc[] endif::git-am[] Note that this is especially problematic for unindented diffs that occur in the commit message; the diff in the commit message might get applied along with the patch section, or the patch application machinery might trip up because the patch target doesn't apply. This could for example be caused by a diff in a Markdown code block. The solution for this is to indent the diff or other text that could cause problems. This loss of fidelity might be simple to notice if you are applying patches directly from a mailbox. However, changes originating from Git could be applied in bulk, in which case this would be much harder to notice. This could for example be a Linux distribution which uses patch files to apply changes on top of the commits from the upstream repositories. This goes to show that this behavior does not only impact email workflows. Given these limitations, one might be tempted to use a general-purpose utility like patch(1) instead. However, patch(1) will not only look for unindented diffs (like linkgit:git-am[1]) but will try to apply indented diffs as well.