diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 8fc91bb8b7..3d7adfcb99 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -178,7 +178,7 @@ pot: Makefile po/POTFILES.in
 
 
 $(srcdir)/po/POTFILES.in: make-gnucash-potfiles .potfiles
-	./make-gnucash-potfiles > $(srcdir)/po/POTFILES.in
+	if test -w $(srcdir)/po/POTFILES.in ; then ./make-gnucash-potfiles > $(srcdir)/po/POTFILES.in ; fi
 
 # Creation rules so that po/gnucash.pot can always be created for
 # make dist.
diff --git a/po/POTFILES.ignore b/po/POTFILES.ignore
index 29923b9a79..87781ea936 100644
--- a/po/POTFILES.ignore
+++ b/po/POTFILES.ignore
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 # due to "missing" files.  These files may be distributed.
 lib/glib28/gfileutils-2.8.c
 src/gnome/gnucash.desktop.in.in
+src/gnome/gnucash.desktop.in
 # The features in import-export/qif are still unused.
 src/import-export/qif/qif-defaults.c
 src/import-export/qif/qif-parse.c
diff --git a/po/POTFILES.skip b/po/POTFILES.skip
index 07fa9341a7..d65f52179a 100644
--- a/po/POTFILES.skip
+++ b/po/POTFILES.skip
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@ src/backend/dwi/qofmap.c
 src/gnome-utils/gnctreemodelsort.c
 src/gnome-utils/gtktreedatalist.c
 src/gnome-utils/gnc-tree-model-selection.c
-src/gnome/gnucash.desktop.in
 src/backend/file/gncmod-backend-file.c
 src/backend/file/io-gncbin-r.c
 src/import-export/binary-import/binary-import.glade