diff --git a/src/qtgui/recoll-win.pro b/src/qtgui/recoll-win.pro
index 725eb59b..dedbaa51 100644
--- a/src/qtgui/recoll-win.pro
+++ b/src/qtgui/recoll-win.pro
@@ -13,9 +13,6 @@ DEFINES += USING_WEBENGINE
 QT += xml printsupport
 
 DEFINES += BUILDING_RECOLL
-DEFINES -= UNICODE
-DEFINES -= _UNICODE
-DEFINES += _MBCS
 DEFINES += PSAPI_VERSION=1
 DEFINES += __WIN32__
 
@@ -110,6 +107,7 @@ INCLUDEPATH += ../common ../index ../internfile ../query ../unac \
               ../utils ../aspell ../rcldb ../qtgui ../xaposix \
               confgui widgets
 windows {
+    DEFINES += UNICODE
     RC_FILE = recoll.rc
     contains(QMAKE_CC, gcc){
         # MingW
diff --git a/src/windows/qmkrecoll/librecoll.pro b/src/windows/qmkrecoll/librecoll.pro
index d159ece5..0ba15dd3 100644
--- a/src/windows/qmkrecoll/librecoll.pro
+++ b/src/windows/qmkrecoll/librecoll.pro
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ TARGET = librecoll
 TEMPLATE = lib
 
 DEFINES += LIBRECOLL_LIBRARY BUILDING_RECOLL
-DEFINES += UNICODE
 DEFINES += PSAPI_VERSION=1
 DEFINES += READFILE_ENABLE_MINIZ
 DEFINES += READFILE_ENABLE_MD5
@@ -131,6 +130,7 @@ INCLUDEPATH += ../../common ../../index ../../internfile ../../query \
             ../../xaposix ../../confgui ../../bincimapmime 
 
 windows {
+  defines += UNICODE
   contains(QMAKE_CC, gcc){
     # MingW
     # This is necessary to avoid an undefined impl__xmlFree.