What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue) touch "this is escaped" touch "this is not escaped" git add "this is escaped" git status --short What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior) I expected that git status --short would string escape both "this is escaped" and "this is not escaped" since they both contain spaces that need escaping. What happened instead? (Actual behavior) git status did not string escape "this is not escaped" but it does if you add it to the index. What's different between what you expected and what actually happened? Anything else you want to add: Once you add "this is not escaped", git status will output it with quotes. git status --short seems to change its behavior of escaping based on whether the path is tracked or untracked. Please review the rest of the bug report below. You can delete any lines you don't wish to share. [System Info] git version: git version 2.28.0 cpu: x86_64 no commit associated with this build sizeof-long: 8 sizeof-size_t: 8 shell-path: /bin/sh uname: Darwin 19.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 19.5.0: Tue May 26 20:41:44 PDT 2020; root:xnu-6153.121.2~2/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64 compiler info: clang: 11.0.3 (clang-1103.0.32.62) libc info: no libc information available $SHELL (typically, interactive shell): /usr/local/bin/fish [Enabled Hooks]