diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 1c9e2993a..ae7b24f2c 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -2287,6 +2287,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "filmcraft-color",
  "harfrust",
  "skrifa",
+ "tempfile",
  "unicode-bidi",
  "unicode-linebreak",
  "unicode-segmentation",
diff --git a/crates/text/Cargo.toml b/crates/text/Cargo.toml
index 00989623d..811164495 100644
--- a/crates/text/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/text/Cargo.toml
@@ -21,3 +21,6 @@ unicode-bidi = "0.3.18"
 unicode-linebreak = "0.1.5"
 # UAX #29 extended grapheme clusters (MIT OR Apache-2.0).
 unicode-segmentation = "1.13"
+
+[dev-dependencies]
+tempfile = "3.27"
diff --git a/crates/text/src/fonts.rs b/crates/text/src/fonts.rs
index a6c3f444f..add11df73 100644
--- a/crates/text/src/fonts.rs
+++ b/crates/text/src/fonts.rs
@@ -114,16 +114,46 @@ fn walk(dir: &std::path::Path, depth: u32, out: &mut Vec<PathBuf>) {
     let Ok(rd) = std::fs::read_dir(dir) else { return };
     for e in rd.flatten() {
         let p = e.path();
-        if p.is_dir() {
+        let Ok(file_type) = e.file_type() else { continue };
+        // Font discovery is bounded to the configured folders: never follow a symlinked folder
+        // into a loop or an unrelated tree. Symlinked font files (NixOS, home-manager, Debian
+        // alternatives) still count.
+        let is_file = if file_type.is_symlink() { std::fs::metadata(&p).is_ok_and(|m| m.is_file()) } else { file_type.is_file() };
+        if file_type.is_dir() {
             if depth < 4 {
                 walk(&p, depth + 1, out);
             }
-        } else if p.extension().and_then(|x| x.to_str()).is_some_and(|x| matches!(x.to_ascii_lowercase().as_str(), "ttf" | "otf" | "ttc" | "otc")) {
+        } else if is_file && p.extension().and_then(|x| x.to_str()).is_some_and(|x| matches!(x.to_ascii_lowercase().as_str(), "ttf" | "otf" | "ttc" | "otc")) {
             out.push(p);
         }
     }
 }
 
+#[cfg(all(test, unix))]
+mod directory_tests {
+    use super::walk;
+
+    #[test]
+    fn directory_source_does_not_follow_symlinked_font_trees() {
+        use std::os::unix::fs::symlink;
+
+        let root = tempfile::tempdir().unwrap();
+        let configured = root.path().join("configured");
+        let foreign = root.path().join("foreign");
+        std::fs::create_dir_all(&configured).unwrap();
+        std::fs::create_dir_all(&foreign).unwrap();
+        std::fs::write(configured.join("inside.ttf"), b"").unwrap();
+        std::fs::write(foreign.join("outside.ttf"), b"").unwrap();
+        symlink(&foreign, configured.join("loop")).unwrap();
+        symlink(foreign.join("outside.ttf"), configured.join("linked.ttf")).unwrap();
+
+        let mut found = Vec::new();
+        walk(&configured, 0, &mut found);
+        found.sort();
+        assert_eq!(found, vec![configured.join("inside.ttf"), configured.join("linked.ttf")]);
+    }
+}
+
 impl FontSource for DirectorySource {
     fn faces(&self) -> Vec<FaceInfo> {
         let mut files = Vec::new();