diff --git a/kitty/data-types.c b/kitty/data-types.c
index 285abba50..9172f319d 100644
--- a/kitty/data-types.c
+++ b/kitty/data-types.c
@@ -654,10 +654,9 @@ abspath(PyObject *self UNUSED, PyObject *path) {
 
 static PyObject*
 py_makedirs(PyObject *self UNUSED, PyObject *args) {
-    int mode = 0755; const char *p; Py_ssize_t sz;
-    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s#|i", &p, &sz, &mode)) return NULL;
-    RAII_PyObject(b, PyBytes_FromStringAndSize(p, sz));
-    if (!makedirs(PyBytes_AS_STRING(b), mode)) { PyErr_SetFromErrno(PyExc_OSError); return NULL; }
+    int mode = 0755; const char *p;
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s|i", &p, &mode)) return NULL;
+    if (!makedirs(p, mode)) { PyErr_SetFromErrno(PyExc_OSError); return NULL; }
     Py_RETURN_NONE;
 }
 
diff --git a/kitty/launcher/utils.h b/kitty/launcher/utils.h
index 6c1ebe57c..ae07c2323 100644
--- a/kitty/launcher/utils.h
+++ b/kitty/launcher/utils.h
@@ -145,10 +145,11 @@ makedirs_cleaned(char *path, int mode, struct stat *buffer) {
 }
 
 static bool
-makedirs(char *path /* path is modified by this function */, int mode) {
+makedirs(const char *path, int mode) {
     struct stat buffer;
-    clean_path(path);
-    return makedirs_cleaned(path, mode, &buffer);
+    char pbuf[PATH_MAX];
+    lexical_absolute_path(path, pbuf, sizeof(pbuf));
+    return makedirs_cleaned(pbuf, mode, &buffer);
 }
 
 static bool