diff --git a/beetsplug/badfiles.py b/beetsplug/badfiles.py
index e072d82a3..d27208724 100644
--- a/beetsplug/badfiles.py
+++ b/beetsplug/badfiles.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ from __future__ import (division, absolute_import, print_function,
 
 from beets.plugins import BeetsPlugin
 from beets.ui import Subcommand
-from beets.util import displayable_path
+from beets.util import displayable_path, confit
 from beets import ui
 from subprocess import check_output, CalledProcessError, list2cmdline, STDOUT
 import shlex
@@ -35,22 +35,27 @@ class BadFiles(BeetsPlugin):
                         displayable_path(list2cmdline(cmd)))
         try:
             output = check_output(cmd, stderr=STDOUT)
-            return 0, [line for line in output.split("\n") if line]
+            errors = 0
+            status = 0
         except CalledProcessError as e:
-            return 1, [line for line in e.output.split("\n") if line]
+            output = e.output
+            errors = 1
+            status = e.returncode
         except OSError as e:
             if e.errno == errno.ENOENT:
                 ui.print_("command not found: {}".format(cmd[0]))
                 sys.exit(1)
             else:
                 raise
+        output = output.decode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
+        return status, errors, [line for line in output.split("\n") if line]
 
     def check_mp3val(self, path):
-        errors, output = self.run_command(["mp3val", path])
-        if errors == 0:
+        status, errors, output = self.run_command(["mp3val", path])
+        if status == 0:
             output = [line for line in output if line.startswith("WARNING:")]
-            errors = sum(1 for line in output if line.startswith("WARNING:"))
-        return errors, output
+            errors = len(output)
+        return status, errors, output
 
     def check_flac(self, path):
         return self.run_command(["flac", "-wst", path])
@@ -64,7 +69,10 @@ class BadFiles(BeetsPlugin):
 
     def get_checker(self, ext):
         ext = ext.lower()
-        command = self.config['commands'].get().get(ext)
+        try:
+            command = self.config['commands'].get(dict).get(ext)
+        except confit.NotFoundError:
+            command = None
         if command:
             return self.check_custom(command)
         elif ext == "mp3":
@@ -73,28 +81,37 @@ class BadFiles(BeetsPlugin):
             return self.check_flac
 
     def check_bad(self, lib, opts, args):
-        for item in lib.items(args):
+        for item in lib.items(ui.decargs(args)):
 
             # First, check whether the path exists. If not, the user
             # should probably run `beet update` to cleanup your library.
             dpath = displayable_path(item.path)
             self._log.debug("checking path: {}", dpath)
             if not os.path.exists(item.path):
-                ui.print_("{}: file does not exist".format(dpath))
+                ui.print_("{}: file does not exist".format(
+                    ui.colorize('text_error', dpath)))
 
             # Run the checker against the file if one is found
             ext = os.path.splitext(item.path)[1][1:]
             checker = self.get_checker(ext)
             if not checker:
                 continue
-            errors, output = checker(item.path)
-            if errors == 0:
-                ui.print_("{}: ok".format(dpath))
-            else:
-                ui.print_("{}: checker found {} errors or warnings"
-                          .format(dpath, errors))
+            path = item.path
+            if not isinstance(path, unicode):
+                path = item.path.decode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
+            status, errors, output = checker(path)
+            if status > 0:
+                ui.print_("{}: checker exited withs status {}"
+                          .format(ui.colorize('text_error', dpath), status))
                 for line in output:
                     ui.print_("  {}".format(displayable_path(line)))
+            elif errors > 0:
+                ui.print_("{}: checker found {} errors or warnings"
+                          .format(ui.colorize('text_warning', dpath), errors))
+                for line in output:
+                    ui.print_("  {}".format(displayable_path(line)))
+            else:
+                ui.print_("{}: ok".format(ui.colorize('text_success', dpath)))
 
     def commands(self):
         bad_command = Subcommand('bad',
diff --git a/docs/plugins/badfiles.rst b/docs/plugins/badfiles.rst
index 6ff369ff5..80f543c54 100644
--- a/docs/plugins/badfiles.rst
+++ b/docs/plugins/badfiles.rst
@@ -7,14 +7,13 @@ corrupt files.
 Configuring
 -----------
 
-First, enable the ``badfiles`` plugin (see :ref:`using-plugins`). Then, add a
-``badfiles:`` section to your configuration file, like so::
+First, enable the ``badfiles`` plugin (see :ref:`using-plugins`). The default
+configuration defines the following default checkers, which you may need to
+install yourself:
 
-    badfiles:
-        commands: {}
+* `mp3val`_ for MP3 files
+* `FLAC`_ command-line tools for FLAC files
 
-This uses two default checkers: `mp3val`_ for MP3s and the ordinary `FLAC`_
-command-line tools for those files. (You will need to install these yourself.)
 You can also add custom commands for a specific extension, like this::
 
     badfiles:
@@ -22,6 +21,10 @@ You can also add custom commands for a specific extension, like this::
             ogg: myoggchecker --opt1 --opt2
             flac: flac --test --warnings-as-errors --silent
 
+Custom commands will be run once for each file of the specified type, with the
+path to the file as the last argument. Commands must return a status code
+greater than zero for a file to be considered corrupt.
+
 .. _mp3val: http://mp3val.sourceforge.net/
 .. _flac: https://xiph.org/flac/