diff --git a/src/qtgui/confgui/confguiindex.cpp b/src/qtgui/confgui/confguiindex.cpp
index 8d7de6a8..82002c3d 100644
--- a/src/qtgui/confgui/confguiindex.cpp
+++ b/src/qtgui/confgui/confguiindex.cpp
@@ -388,6 +388,18 @@ ConfSubPanelW::ConfSubPanelW(QWidget *parent, ConfNull *config)
 
     vboxLayout->addWidget(m_groupbox);
     subDirChanged();
+
+    ConfLink lnkfiltmaxsecs(new ConfLinkRclRep(config, "filtermaxseconds"));
+    ConfParamIntW *efiltmaxsecs = new 
+	ConfParamIntW(m_groupbox, lnkfiltmaxsecs, 
+		      tr("Max. filter exec. time (S)"),
+		      tr("External filters working longer than this will be "
+                         "aborted. This is for the rare case (ie: postscript) "
+                         "where a document could cause a filter to loop"
+			 "Set to -1 for no limit.\n"),
+		      -1, 10000);
+    m_widgets.push_back(efiltmaxsecs);
+
 }
 
 void ConfSubPanelW::reloadAll()
diff --git a/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in b/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in
index 825ddf85..63e9297f 100644
--- a/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in
+++ b/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in
@@ -113,6 +113,10 @@ textfilemaxmbs = -1
 # piece into the preview window. Might be useful for big logs
 textfilepagekbs = -1
 
+# Maximum external filter execution time. Default 20mn. This is mainly
+# to avoid infinite loops in postscript files (loop.ps)
+filtermaxseconds = 1200
+
 # Length of abstracts we store while indexing. Longer will make for a
 # bigger db
 # idxabsmlen = 250