diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.rst b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
index ee963ab46..d19a376b3 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.rst
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
@@ -286,31 +286,6 @@ according to the specifications required by the project.
 Similarly, run ``poe format-docs`` and ``poe lint-docs`` to ensure consistent
 documentation formatting and check for any issues.
 
-Handling Paths
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
-A great deal of convention deals with the handling of **paths**. Paths are
-stored internally—in the database, for instance—as byte strings (i.e., ``bytes``
-instead of ``str`` in Python 3). This is because POSIX operating systems’ path
-names are only reliably usable as byte strings—operating systems typically
-recommend but do not require that filenames use a given encoding, so violations
-of any reported encoding are inevitable. On Windows, the strings are always
-encoded with UTF-8; on Unix, the encoding is controlled by the filesystem. Here
-are some guidelines to follow:
-
-- If you have a Unicode path or you’re not sure whether something is Unicode or
-  not, pass it through ``bytestring_path`` function in the ``beets.util`` module
-  to convert it to bytes.
-- Pass every path name through the ``syspath`` function (also in ``beets.util``)
-  before sending it to any *operating system* file operation (``open``, for
-  example). This is necessary to use long filenames (which, maddeningly, must be
-  Unicode) on Windows. This allows us to consistently store bytes in the
-  database but use the native encoding rule on both POSIX and Windows.
-- Similarly, the ``displayable_path`` utility function converts bytestring paths
-  to a Unicode string for displaying to the user. Every time you want to print
-  out a string to the terminal or log it with the ``logging`` module, feed it
-  through this function.
-
 Editor Settings
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/docs/dev/index.rst b/docs/dev/index.rst
index 7bd0ba709..f22aa8c56 100644
--- a/docs/dev/index.rst
+++ b/docs/dev/index.rst
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ configuration files, respectively.
 
     plugins/index
     library
+    paths
     importer
     cli
     ../api/index
diff --git a/docs/dev/paths.rst b/docs/dev/paths.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..136414edb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/dev/paths.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+Handling Paths
+==============
+
+A great deal of convention deals with the handling of **paths**. Paths are
+stored internally—in the database, for instance—as byte strings (i.e., ``bytes``
+instead of ``str`` in Python 3). This is because POSIX operating systems’ path
+names are only reliably usable as byte strings—operating systems typically
+recommend but do not require that filenames use a given encoding, so violations
+of any reported encoding are inevitable. On Windows, the strings are always
+encoded with UTF-8; on Unix, the encoding is controlled by the filesystem. Here
+are some guidelines to follow:
+
+- If you have a Unicode path or you’re not sure whether something is Unicode or
+  not, pass it through ``bytestring_path`` function in the ``beets.util`` module
+  to convert it to bytes.
+- Pass every path name through the ``syspath`` function (also in ``beets.util``)
+  before sending it to any *operating system* file operation (``open``, for
+  example). This is necessary to use long filenames (which, maddeningly, must be
+  Unicode) on Windows. This allows us to consistently store bytes in the
+  database but use the native encoding rule on both POSIX and Windows.
+- Similarly, the ``displayable_path`` utility function converts bytestring paths
+  to a Unicode string for displaying to the user. Every time you want to print
+  out a string to the terminal or log it with the ``logging`` module, feed it
+  through this function.