diff --git a/beets/ui/commands.py b/beets/ui/commands.py
index 6c8e25b85..68cc7b635 100755
--- a/beets/ui/commands.py
+++ b/beets/ui/commands.py
@@ -958,7 +958,7 @@ def import_files(lib, paths, query):
     if config['import']['log'].get() is not None:
         logpath = syspath(config['import']['log'].as_filename())
         try:
-            loghandler = logging.FileHandler(logpath)
+            loghandler = logging.FileHandler(logpath, encoding='utf-8')
         except OSError:
             raise ui.UserError("could not open log file for writing: "
                                "{}".format(displayable_path(logpath)))
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 568d6022b..39cd8fa2d 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ for Python 3.6).
 
 New features:
 
+* --from-logfile now parses log files using a UTF-8 encoding in `beets/beets/ui/commands.py`.
+  :bug:`4693` 
 * Added additional error handling for `spotify` plugin.
   :bug:`4686`
 * We now import the remixer field from Musicbrainz into the library.