diff --git a/src/app/pasteboard.coffee b/src/app/pasteboard.coffee
index 7e5d6ccb7..4d635ceee 100644
--- a/src/app/pasteboard.coffee
+++ b/src/app/pasteboard.coffee
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ class Pasteboard
   signatureForMetadata: null
 
   md5: (text) ->
-    crypto.createHash('md5').update(text).digest('hex')
+    crypto.createHash('md5').update(text, 'utf8').digest('hex')
 
   write: (text, metadata) ->
     @signatureForMetadata = @md5(text)