diff --git a/apatch b/apatch
index 995bfc7..afa6664 100755
--- a/apatch
+++ b/apatch
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ if [ -f "$patchpath" ]; then
   msg "patch exists, trying to extract existing message"
   # try to extract the original header from the patch
   patch_start=$(grep -En '^(diff --git|--- )' "$patchpath" | cut -d: -f1 | head -n 1)
-  header_file="$(mktemp -t apatch.XXXXXX)"
+  header_file="/tmp/$(mktemp -u apatch.XXXXXX)"
   head -n $(( patch_start - 1 )) "$patchpath" > "$header_file"
 fi