diff --git a/src/gitattributes.rs b/src/gitattributes.rs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1739fb2d4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/gitattributes.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+use std::path::Path;
+use std::process::Command;
+
+/// Corresponds to the diff attribute. See man gitattributes,
+/// specifically **Generating diff text** section.
+#[derive(Debug, PartialEq)]
+pub(crate) enum DiffAttribute {
+    /// The file must be treated as text
+    Set,
+
+    /// The file must be treated as binary, and no diff will be shown.
+    /// Sometimes used for generated text files as well.
+    Unset,
+
+    /// The file type (text vs binary) will be autodetected.
+    /// This is the default setting.
+    Unspecified,
+
+    /// Diff will be shown using the specified diff driver.
+    /// This is ignored by difft.
+    Other(String),
+}
+
+impl From<&str> for DiffAttribute {
+    fn from(s: &str) -> Self {
+        match s {
+            "set" => Self::Set,
+            "unset" => Self::Unset,
+            "unspecified" => Self::Unspecified,
+            s => Self::Other(s.to_owned()),
+        }
+    }
+}
+/// Runs `git check-attr diff binary` to get the diff and binary attributes of the path. Returns
+/// [`Option::None`] when either `git` is not available, file is not inside git directory, or
+/// something else went wrong.
+pub(crate) fn check_diff_attr(path: &Path) -> Option<DiffAttribute> {
+    let res = Command::new("git")
+        .args(["check-attr", "diff", "binary", "-z", "--"])
+        .arg(path)
+        .output();
+
+    match res {
+        Ok(output) => {
+            // Running git outside of git repository, or perhaps many other error conditions, will
+            // result in this. Since we run git check-attr eagerly, and can't distinguish the error
+            // conditions easily and reliably, log just a debug message.
+            if !output.status.success() {
+                debug!(
+                    "git check-attr exited with status {}: \"{}\"",
+                    output.status,
+                    output.stderr.escape_ascii()
+                );
+                return None;
+            }
+
+            let output = &output.stdout;
+            match parse_output(output) {
+                Some(res) => {
+                    trace!("git check-attr result: {:?}", res);
+                    return Some(res);
+                }
+                None => {
+                    warn!(
+                        "malformed git check-attr output: \"{}\"",
+                        output.escape_ascii()
+                    );
+                }
+            }
+        }
+        Err(err) => {
+            debug!("failed to execute git: {err}");
+        }
+    }
+
+    None
+}
+
+fn parse_output(output: &[u8]) -> Option<DiffAttribute> {
+    // The git check-attr -z output format is repeated
+    //     <path> NUL <attribute> NUL <info> NUL
+    //
+    // This function assumes git check-attr diff binary -z -- PATH, so the output contains
+    // attributes only for the specified file, and thus we don't even look at path.
+
+    let mut binary_set = false;
+    let mut result = DiffAttribute::Unspecified;
+
+    let mut it = output.split(|&b| b == b'\0');
+    while let Some(path) = it.next() {
+        if path.is_empty() {
+            // Bogus "path" after the last NUL.
+            // It would be a tad cleaner if split_terminator was available for &[u8]...
+            break;
+        }
+        let attribute = it.next()?;
+        let info = it.next()?;
+
+        match attribute {
+            b"diff" => {
+                // this is only lossy for custom driver variant, which we don't support, and it's
+                // quite unlikely to contain invalid UTF-8 (who puts their binaries in files named
+                // by invalid strings?)
+                let s = String::from_utf8_lossy(info);
+                result = s.as_ref().into();
+            }
+            b"binary" => {
+                if info == b"set" {
+                    binary_set = true;
+                }
+            }
+            _ => {
+                warn!(
+                    "unexpected attribute in git check-attr output: \"{}\"",
+                    attribute.escape_ascii()
+                );
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    if binary_set {
+        // assume user doesn't want to see the diff, even if they specify diff=whatever
+        result = DiffAttribute::Unset;
+    }
+
+    Some(result)
+}
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+    use pretty_assertions::assert_eq;
+
+    use super::*;
+
+    #[test]
+    fn test_parse_output() {
+        // The test case assumes fictional git repository with the following .gitattributes
+        // contents to ignore generated protobuf files, but see generated gRPC files, and uses
+        // imaginary "hex" diff driver for wtf.bin files:
+        //
+        //     /protos/*.pb.go -diff
+        //     /protos/*_grpc.pb.go diff
+        //     wtf.bin binary diff=hex
+        //
+
+        // This is a plaintext file, no attributes, assume regular text diff
+        assert_eq!(
+            parse_output(b"protos/difft.proto\x00diff\x00unspecified\x00binary\x00unspecified\x00"),
+            Some(DiffAttribute::Unspecified)
+        );
+
+        // This is a generated file with diff attribute unset (we don't want to look into its diff)
+        assert_eq!(
+            parse_output(b"protos/difft.pb.go\x00diff\x00unset\x00binary\x00unspecified\x00"),
+            Some(DiffAttribute::Unset)
+        );
+
+        // diff attribute is explicitly re-enabled for this file
+        assert_eq!(
+            parse_output(b"protos/difft_grpc.pb.go\x00diff\x00set\x00binary\x00unspecified\x00"),
+            Some(DiffAttribute::Set)
+        );
+
+        // Although diff=hex basically undoes the effect of binary macro attribute, we assume the
+        // user doesn't want to see them here. difft doesn't run git diff drivers, after all.
+        assert_eq!(
+            parse_output(b"wtf.bin\x00diff\x00hex\x00wtf.bin\x00binary\x00set\x00"),
+            Some(DiffAttribute::Unset)
+        );
+    }
+}
diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index 09f0f665b2..35593cf4f2 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -47,6 +47,7 @@ mod diff;
 mod display;
 mod exit_codes;
 mod files;
+mod gitattributes;
 mod hash;
 mod line_parser;
 mod lines;
@@ -75,6 +76,7 @@ use crate::files::{
     guess_content, read_file_or_die, read_files_or_die, read_or_die, relative_paths_in_either,
     ProbableFileKind,
 };
+use crate::gitattributes::{check_diff_attr, DiffAttribute};
 use crate::parse::guess_language::{
     guess, language_globs, language_name, Language, LanguageOverride,
 };
@@ -414,8 +416,11 @@ fn diff_file(
     let (mut lhs_src, mut rhs_src) = match (
         guess_content(&lhs_bytes, lhs_path, binary_overrides),
         guess_content(&rhs_bytes, rhs_path, binary_overrides),
+        check_diff_attr(Path::new(display_path)),
     ) {
-        (ProbableFileKind::Binary, _) | (_, ProbableFileKind::Binary) => {
+        (ProbableFileKind::Binary, _, _)
+        | (_, ProbableFileKind::Binary, _)
+        | (_, _, Some(DiffAttribute::Unset)) => {
             let has_byte_changes = if lhs_bytes == rhs_bytes {
                 None
             } else {
@@ -434,7 +439,7 @@ fn diff_file(
                 has_syntactic_changes: false,
             };
         }
-        (ProbableFileKind::Text(lhs_src), ProbableFileKind::Text(rhs_src)) => (lhs_src, rhs_src),
+        (ProbableFileKind::Text(lhs_src), ProbableFileKind::Text(rhs_src), _) => (lhs_src, rhs_src),
     };
 
     if diff_options.strip_cr {