Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an intracellular pathogen that infects and replicates in macrophages. Mtb employs several means to evade host countermeasures, including interfering with autophagy by damaging the phagosomal membrane via the ESX-1 type VII secretion system. Though the involvement of ATG5 in restricting Mtb is widely accepted, conflicting results about the involvement of other autophagy factors, such as ATG7, ATG16L1 and ATG14, have rendered the role of xenophagy in combating Mtb uncertain. Writing in Nature Microbiology, Golovkine et al.1 and Aylan et al.2 now confirm that canonical xenophagy efficiently counteracts Mtb infection.