diff --git a/Documentation/git-mailinfo.txt b/Documentation/git-mailinfo.txt
index 8d95aaa304..d800aea0c1 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-mailinfo.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-mailinfo.txt
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ git-mailinfo - Extracts patch and authorship from a single e-mail message
 
 SYNOPSIS
 --------
-'git mailinfo' [-k] [-u | --encoding=<encoding> | -n] <msg> <patch>
+'git mailinfo' [-k|-b] [-u | --encoding=<encoding> | -n] <msg> <patch>
 
 
 DESCRIPTION
@@ -32,6 +32,11 @@ OPTIONS
 	munging, and is most useful when used to read back
 	'git-format-patch -k' output.
 
+-b::
+	When -k is not in effect, all leading strings bracketed with '['
+	and ']' pairs are stripped.  This option limits the stripping to
+	only the pairs whose bracketed string contains the word "PATCH".
+
 -u::
 	The commit log message, author name and author email are
 	taken from the e-mail, and after minimally decoding MIME
diff --git a/builtin-mailinfo.c b/builtin-mailinfo.c
index 92637ac0ba..a5949e2c9a 100644
--- a/builtin-mailinfo.c
+++ b/builtin-mailinfo.c
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 static FILE *cmitmsg, *patchfile, *fin, *fout;
 
 static int keep_subject;
+static int keep_non_patch_brackets_in_subject;
 static const char *metainfo_charset;
 static struct strbuf line = STRBUF_INIT;
 static struct strbuf name = STRBUF_INIT;
@@ -219,35 +220,41 @@ static int is_multipart_boundary(const struct strbuf *line)
 
 static void cleanup_subject(struct strbuf *subject)
 {
-	char *pos;
-	size_t remove;
-	while (subject->len) {
-		switch (*subject->buf) {
+	size_t at = 0;
+
+	while (at < subject->len) {
+		char *pos;
+		size_t remove;
+
+		switch (subject->buf[at]) {
 		case 'r': case 'R':
-			if (subject->len <= 3)
+			if (subject->len <= at + 3)
 				break;
-			if (!memcmp(subject->buf + 1, "e:", 2)) {
-				strbuf_remove(subject, 0, 3);
+			if (!memcmp(subject->buf + at + 1, "e:", 2)) {
+				strbuf_remove(subject, at, 3);
 				continue;
 			}
+			at++;
 			break;
 		case ' ': case '\t': case ':':
-			strbuf_remove(subject, 0, 1);
+			strbuf_remove(subject, at, 1);
 			continue;
 		case '[':
-			if ((pos = strchr(subject->buf, ']'))) {
-				remove = pos - subject->buf;
-				if (remove <= (subject->len - remove) * 2) {
-					strbuf_remove(subject, 0, remove + 1);
-					continue;
-				}
-			} else
-				strbuf_remove(subject, 0, 1);
-			break;
+			pos = strchr(subject->buf + at, ']');
+			if (!pos)
+				break;
+			remove = pos - subject->buf + at + 1;
+			if (!keep_non_patch_brackets_in_subject ||
+			    (7 <= remove &&
+			     memmem(subject->buf + at, remove, "PATCH", 5)))
+				strbuf_remove(subject, at, remove);
+			else
+				at += remove;
+			continue;
 		}
-		strbuf_trim(subject);
-		return;
+		break;
 	}
+	strbuf_trim(subject);
 }
 
 static void cleanup_space(struct strbuf *sb)
@@ -931,7 +938,7 @@ static int mailinfo(FILE *in, FILE *out, int ks, const char *encoding,
 }
 
 static const char mailinfo_usage[] =
-	"git mailinfo [-k] [-u | --encoding=<encoding> | -n] msg patch <mail >info";
+	"git mailinfo [-k|-b] [-u | --encoding=<encoding> | -n] msg patch <mail >info";
 
 int cmd_mailinfo(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 {
@@ -948,6 +955,8 @@ int cmd_mailinfo(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	while (1 < argc && argv[1][0] == '-') {
 		if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-k"))
 			keep_subject = 1;
+		else if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-b"))
+			keep_non_patch_brackets_in_subject = 1;
 		else if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-u"))
 			metainfo_charset = def_charset;
 		else if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-n"))