diff --git a/js/misc/systemActions.js b/js/misc/systemActions.js
index 4c2f3a290..1cd657648 100644
--- a/js/misc/systemActions.js
+++ b/js/misc/systemActions.js
@@ -269,6 +269,10 @@ const SystemActions = GObject.registerClass({
         terms = terms.map(
             term => GLib.str_tokenize_and_fold(term, null)[0]).flat(2);
 
+        // tokenizing may return an empty array
+        if (terms.length === 0)
+            return [];
+
         let results = [];
 
         for (let [key, { available, keywords }] of this._actions) {