diff --git a/beets/util/__init__.py b/beets/util/__init__.py
index 720ca311a..06e02ee08 100644
--- a/beets/util/__init__.py
+++ b/beets/util/__init__.py
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@
 import os
 import sys
 import errno
-import locale
 import re
 import tempfile
 import shutil
@@ -332,12 +331,7 @@ def arg_encoding():
     """Get the encoding for command-line arguments (and other OS
     locale-sensitive strings).
     """
-    try:
-        return locale.getdefaultlocale()[1] or 'utf-8'
-    except ValueError:
-        # Invalid locale environment variable setting. To avoid
-        # failing entirely for no good reason, assume UTF-8.
-        return 'utf-8'
+    return sys.getfilesystemencoding()
 
 
 def _fsencoding():
@@ -837,13 +831,14 @@ def cpu_count():
 
 
 def convert_command_args(args):
-    """Convert command arguments to bytestrings on Python 2 and
-    surrogate-escaped strings on Python 3."""
+    """Convert command arguments, which may either be `bytes` or `str`
+    objects, to uniformly surrogate-escaped strings.
+    """
     assert isinstance(args, list)
 
     def convert(arg):
         if isinstance(arg, bytes):
-            arg = arg.decode(arg_encoding(), 'surrogateescape')
+            return os.fsdecode(arg)
         return arg
 
     return [convert(a) for a in args]
@@ -1092,21 +1087,3 @@ def lazy_property(func):
         return value
 
     return wrapper
-
-
-def decode_commandline_path(path):
-    """Prepare a path for substitution into commandline template.
-
-    On Python 3, we need to construct the subprocess commands to invoke as a
-    Unicode string. On Unix, this is a little unfortunate---the OS is
-    expecting bytes---so we use surrogate escaping and decode with the
-    argument encoding, which is the same encoding that will then be
-    *reversed* to recover the same bytes before invoking the OS. On
-    Windows, we want to preserve the Unicode filename "as is."
-    """
-    # On Python 3, the template is a Unicode string, which only supports
-    # substitution of Unicode variables.
-    if platform.system() == 'Windows':
-        return path.decode(_fsencoding())
-    else:
-        return path.decode(arg_encoding(), 'surrogateescape')
diff --git a/beetsplug/convert.py b/beetsplug/convert.py
index 95240dc39..17a18e358 100644
--- a/beetsplug/convert.py
+++ b/beetsplug/convert.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 
 """Converts tracks or albums to external directory
 """
-from beets.util import par_map, decode_commandline_path, arg_encoding
+from beets.util import par_map, arg_encoding
 
 import os
 import threading
@@ -214,8 +214,8 @@ class ConvertPlugin(BeetsPlugin):
             self._log.info('Encoding {0}', util.displayable_path(source))
 
         command = command.decode(arg_encoding(), 'surrogateescape')
-        source = decode_commandline_path(source)
-        dest = decode_commandline_path(dest)
+        source = os.fsdecode(source)
+        dest = os.fsdecode(dest)
 
         # Substitute $source and $dest in the argument list.
         args = shlex.split(command)
diff --git a/beetsplug/duplicates.py b/beetsplug/duplicates.py
index fdd5c1750..f655c61f2 100644
--- a/beetsplug/duplicates.py
+++ b/beetsplug/duplicates.py
@@ -16,11 +16,12 @@
 """
 
 import shlex
+import os
 
 from beets.plugins import BeetsPlugin
 from beets.ui import decargs, print_, Subcommand, UserError
 from beets.util import command_output, displayable_path, subprocess, \
-    bytestring_path, MoveOperation, decode_commandline_path
+    bytestring_path, MoveOperation
 from beets.library import Item, Album
 
 
@@ -200,7 +201,7 @@ class DuplicatesPlugin(BeetsPlugin):
         output as flexattr on a key that is the name of the program, and
         return the key, checksum tuple.
         """
-        args = [p.format(file=decode_commandline_path(item.path))
+        args = [p.format(file=os.fsdecode(item.path))
                 for p in shlex.split(prog)]
         key = args[0]
         checksum = getattr(item, key, False)
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 9df77d5e7..8ea1c0322 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -51,6 +51,10 @@ Bug fixes:
 * :doc:`/plugins/replaygain`: Avoid a crash when errors occur in the analysis
   backend.
   :bug:`4506`
+* We now use Python's defaults for command-line argument encoding, which
+  should reduce the chance for errors and "file not found" failures when
+  invoking other command-line tools, especially on Windows.
+  :bug:`4507`
 * We now respect the Spotify API's rate limiting, which avoids crashing when the API reports code 429 (too many requests).
   :bug:`4370`
 * Fix implicit paths OR queries (e.g. ``beet list /path/ , /other-path/``)
diff --git a/test/test_util.py b/test/test_util.py
index fcaf9f5ce..14ac7f2b2 100644
--- a/test/test_util.py
+++ b/test/test_util.py
@@ -101,6 +101,7 @@ class UtilTest(unittest.TestCase):
             ])
         self.assertEqual(p, 'foo/_/bar')
 
+    @unittest.skipIf(sys.platform == 'win32', 'win32')
     def test_convert_command_args_keeps_undecodeable_bytes(self):
         arg = b'\x82'  # non-ascii bytes
         cmd_args = util.convert_command_args([arg])