diff --git a/src/git.rs b/src/git.rs
index aac48ca69..d883a2d62 100644
--- a/src/git.rs
+++ b/src/git.rs
@@ -60,8 +60,10 @@ impl GitCache {
             match repo.statuses(None) {
                 Ok(status_list) => {
                     for status_entry in status_list.iter() {
-                        // git2-rs provides / separated path even on Windows. We have to rebuild it
-                        let str_path = status_entry.path().unwrap();
+                        // git2 returns None for non-utf8 paths, skip them
+                        let Some(str_path) = status_entry.path() else {
+                            continue;
+                        };
                         let path: PathBuf =
                             str_path.split('/').collect::<Vec<_>>().iter().collect();
                         let path = workdir.join(path);
diff --git a/src/meta/owner.rs b/src/meta/owner.rs
index ca04023fa..0f708d959 100644
--- a/src/meta/owner.rs
+++ b/src/meta/owner.rs
@@ -50,8 +50,9 @@ fn truncate(input: &str, after: Option<usize>, marker: Option<String>) -> String
     let mut output = input.to_string();
 
     if let Some(after) = after {
-        if output.len() > after {
-            output.truncate(after);
+        // after is a char count, find the matching byte index
+        if let Some((byte_idx, _)) = output.char_indices().nth(after) {
+            output.truncate(byte_idx);
 
             if let Some(marker) = marker {
                 output.push_str(&marker);
@@ -134,4 +135,19 @@ mod test_truncate {
     fn test_truncated_with_marker() {
         assert_eq!("a…", truncate("ab", Some(1), Some("…".to_string())));
     }
+
+    #[test]
+    fn test_truncated_at_multibyte_char_boundary() {
+        assert_eq!("é", truncate("éb", Some(1), None));
+    }
+
+    #[test]
+    fn test_truncated_multibyte_with_marker() {
+        assert_eq!("é…", truncate("éb", Some(1), Some("…".to_string())));
+    }
+
+    #[test]
+    fn test_no_truncation_when_shorter_multibyte() {
+        assert_eq!("é", truncate("é", Some(2), Some("…".to_string())));
+    }
 }
diff --git a/src/meta/symlink.rs b/src/meta/symlink.rs
index 786b49202..6d594c13a 100644
--- a/src/meta/symlink.rs
+++ b/src/meta/symlink.rs
@@ -15,22 +15,12 @@ impl From<&Path> for SymLink {
             if target.is_absolute() || path.parent().is_none() {
                 return Self {
                     valid: target.exists(),
-                    target: Some(
-                        target
-                            .to_str()
-                            .expect("failed to convert symlink to str")
-                            .to_string(),
-                    ),
+                    target: Some(target.to_string_lossy().into_owned()),
                 };
             }
 
             return Self {
-                target: Some(
-                    target
-                        .to_str()
-                        .expect("failed to convert symlink to str")
-                        .to_string(),
-                ),
+                target: Some(target.to_string_lossy().into_owned()),
                 valid: path.parent().unwrap().join(target).exists(),
             };
         }