diff --git a/Mac/PythonLauncher/MyDocument.m b/Mac/PythonLauncher/MyDocument.m
index 86112c4b15d..8f851e74e30 100755
--- a/Mac/PythonLauncher/MyDocument.m
+++ b/Mac/PythonLauncher/MyDocument.m
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
     const char *cmdline;
     int sts;
     
-     cmdline = [[settings commandLineForScript: script] cString];
+     cmdline = [[settings commandLineForScript: script] UTF8String];
    if ([settings with_terminal]) {
         sts = doscript(cmdline);
     } else {
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index a1f30847fec..f431adf3afd 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -188,6 +188,9 @@ Tools/Demos
 
 - Issue #15239: Make mkstringprep.py work again on Python 3.
 
+- Issue #12990: The "Python Launcher" on OSX could not launch python scripts
+  that have paths that include wide characters.
+
 Build
 -----