diff --git a/pkgs/additional/sane-open/sane-open b/pkgs/additional/sane-open/sane-open
index 9932f5724..aa056fabc 100755
--- a/pkgs/additional/sane-open/sane-open
+++ b/pkgs/additional/sane-open/sane-open
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 set -e
 
 usage() {
-  echo "usage: sane-open [options] <org.my.desktop | /path/to/file>"
+  echo "usage: sane-open [options] <org.my.desktop | /path/to/file | URI>"
   echo "given some resource, ask the xdg-desktop-portal service to open it"
   echo "this could be either the name of an application, or a URI identifying a file"
   echo
@@ -236,8 +236,8 @@ if [ -z "$resourceType" ]; then
     log "detected resourceType=application (warning: '$resource' is not visible on disk)"
     resourceType=application
   else
-    log "detected resourceType=file (warning: '$resource' is not visible on disk)"
-    resourceType=file
+    log "unknown resource; treating as URI: $resource"
+    resourceType=uri
   fi
 fi