diff --git a/builtin/mailinfo.c b/builtin/mailinfo.c
index 999a5250fb..5a4ed75a2d 100644
--- a/builtin/mailinfo.c
+++ b/builtin/mailinfo.c
@@ -612,11 +612,6 @@ static void decode_header(struct strbuf *it)
 {
 	if (decode_header_bq(it))
 		return;
-	/* otherwise "it" is a straight copy of the input.
-	 * This can be binary guck but there is no charset specified.
-	 */
-	if (metainfo_charset)
-		convert_to_utf8(it, "");
 }
 
 static void decode_transfer_encoding(struct strbuf *line)