If I disable mnemonic prefix, $ git config --global diff.noprefix true and do a round-trip of format-patch and apply, $ git format-patch -1 @ $ git apply <some-file.patch> git apply fails with, error: git diff header lacks filename information when removing 1 leading pathname component (line 16) Without 'diff.noprefix' config setting, git apply works. It seems git apply does not honor the diff.noprefix config setting. Thanks, Rish