diff --git a/src/backups.js b/src/backups.js
index e93bc4c26..1463e9cfc 100644
--- a/src/backups.js
+++ b/src/backups.js
@@ -27,7 +27,9 @@ exports = module.exports = {
     // for testing
     _getBackupFilePath: getBackupFilePath,
     _createTarPackStream: createTarPackStream,
-    _tarExtract: tarExtract
+    _tarExtract: tarExtract,
+    _createEmptyDirs: createEmptyDirs,
+    _saveEmptyDirs: saveEmptyDirs
 };
 
 var addons = require('./addons.js'),
@@ -345,7 +347,7 @@ function createEmptyDirs(appDataDir, callback) {
     if (emptyDirs === null) return callback(new Error('emptydirs.txt was not found:' + safe.error.message));
 
     async.eachSeries(emptyDirs.trim().split('\n'), function createPath(emptyDir, iteratorDone) {
-        mkdirp(path.join(appDataDir, 'data', emptyDir), iteratorDone);
+        mkdirp(path.join(appDataDir, emptyDir), iteratorDone);
     }, callback);
 }
 
diff --git a/src/test/backups-test.js b/src/test/backups-test.js
index 7d8dde73e..c0bc2dd1b 100644
--- a/src/test/backups-test.js
+++ b/src/test/backups-test.js
@@ -9,9 +9,14 @@
 var async = require('async'),
     backupdb = require('../backupdb.js'),
     backups = require('../backups.js'),
+    createTree = require('./common.js').createTree,
     database = require('../database'),
     DatabaseError = require('../databaseerror.js'),
     expect = require('expect.js'),
+    fs = require('fs'),
+    os = require('os'),
+    path = require('path'),
+    rimraf = require('rimraf'),
     settings = require('../settings.js');
 
 describe('backups', function () {
@@ -167,4 +172,41 @@ describe('backups', function () {
             });
         });
     });
+
+    describe('empty dirs', function () {
+        var tmpdir;
+        before(function () {
+            tmpdir = fs.mkdtempSync(path.join(os.tmpdir(), 'backups-test'));
+        });
+        after(function () {
+            rimraf.sync(tmpdir);
+        });
+
+        it('saves empty dirs file', function (done) {
+            createTree(tmpdir, { 'data': { 'subdir': { 'emptydir': { } } }, 'dir2': { 'file': 'stuff' } });
+
+            backups._saveEmptyDirs(tmpdir, function (error) {
+                expect(error).to.not.be.ok();
+
+                var emptyDirs = fs.readFileSync(path.join(tmpdir, 'emptydirs.txt'), 'utf8').trim().split('\n');
+                expect(emptyDirs).to.eql(['./data/subdir/emptydir']);
+
+                done();
+            });
+        });
+
+        it('creates empty dirs file', function (done) {
+            rimraf.sync(path.join(tmpdir, 'data'));
+
+            expect(fs.existsSync(path.join(tmpdir, 'data/subdir/emptydir'))).to.be(false); // just make sure rimraf worked
+
+            backups._createEmptyDirs(tmpdir, function (error) {
+                expect(error).to.not.be.ok();
+
+                expect(fs.existsSync(path.join(tmpdir, 'data/subdir/emptydir'))).to.be(true);
+
+                done();
+            });
+        });
+    });
 });