What happened?
When working on Git for Windows using Git Bash, files that contain accented characters in their names (such as ç, ã, é, í, ó) are not displayed correctly in the terminal output. The filenames appear corrupted due to an encoding/locale mismatch.
This issue affects commands like:
git status
git diff
git add
git log
Environment
OS: Windows 10/11
Shell: Git Bash (Git for Windows)
Encoding: UTF-8
Git version: (replace here after running git --version)
Steps to Reproduce
Create a repository on Git for Windows.
Create a file with accented characters in the name, for example:
touch documentação.txt
Run:
git status
Observe the filename printed with corrupted characters (mojibake).
Expected Behavior
File names containing UTF-8 accented characters should be displayed correctly in Git Bash when using Git for Windows.
Actual Behavior
The filename is displayed with broken encoding characters, for example:
documenta├o├úo.txt
Impact
Makes filenames difficult to identify
Affects developers who work in Portuguese, Spanish, French, etc.
Reduces usability and clarity when reviewing changes
Additional Information
This issue has existed for a long time in Git for Windows due to encoding inconsistencies between terminal locale and Git output. It does not occur on Linux or macOS under the same steps.

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git status