diff --git a/internal/textfile/read.go b/internal/textfile/read.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..3129ba8fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/textfile/read.go
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+// Package textfile allows reading files that contain text. It automatically
+// detects and converts several encodings and removes Byte Order Marks (BOM).
+package textfile
+
+import (
+	"bytes"
+	"io/ioutil"
+
+	"golang.org/x/text/encoding/unicode"
+)
+
+// All supported BOMs (Byte Order Marks)
+var (
+	bomUTF8              = []byte{0xef, 0xbb, 0xbf}
+	bomUTF16BigEndian    = []byte{0xfe, 0xff}
+	bomUTF16LittleEndian = []byte{0xff, 0xfe}
+)
+
+// Decode removes a byte order mark and converts the bytes to UTF-8.
+func Decode(data []byte) ([]byte, error) {
+	if bytes.HasPrefix(data, bomUTF8) {
+		return data[len(bomUTF8):], nil
+	}
+
+	if !bytes.HasPrefix(data, bomUTF16BigEndian) && !bytes.HasPrefix(data, bomUTF16LittleEndian) {
+		// no encoding specified, let's assume UTF-8
+		return data, nil
+	}
+
+	// UseBom means automatic endianness selection
+	e := unicode.UTF16(unicode.BigEndian, unicode.UseBOM)
+	return e.NewDecoder().Bytes(data)
+}
+
+// Read returns the contents of the file, converted to UTF-8, stripped of any BOM.
+func Read(filename string) ([]byte, error) {
+	data, err := ioutil.ReadFile(filename)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+
+	return Decode(data)
+}
diff --git a/internal/textfile/read_test.go b/internal/textfile/read_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..572a33ebe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/textfile/read_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+package textfile
+
+import (
+	"bytes"
+	"encoding/hex"
+	"testing"
+
+	"github.com/restic/restic/internal/fs"
+)
+
+func writeTempfile(t testing.TB, data []byte) (fs.File, func()) {
+	f, removeTempfile := fs.TestTempFile(t, "restic-test-textfile-read-")
+
+	_, err := f.Write(data)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+
+	err = f.Close()
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+
+	return f, removeTempfile
+}
+
+func dec(s string) []byte {
+	data, err := hex.DecodeString(s)
+	if err != nil {
+		panic(err)
+	}
+	return data
+}
+
+func TestRead(t *testing.T) {
+	var tests = []struct {
+		data []byte
+		want []byte
+	}{
+		{data: []byte("foo bar baz")},
+		{data: []byte("Ööbär")},
+		{
+			data: []byte("\xef\xbb\xbffööbär"),
+			want: []byte("fööbär"),
+		},
+		{
+			data: dec("feff006600f600f6006200e40072"),
+			want: []byte("fööbär"),
+		},
+		{
+			data: dec("fffe6600f600f6006200e4007200"),
+			want: []byte("fööbär"),
+		},
+	}
+
+	for _, test := range tests {
+		t.Run("", func(t *testing.T) {
+			want := test.want
+			if want == nil {
+				want = test.data
+			}
+
+			f, cleanup := writeTempfile(t, test.data)
+			defer cleanup()
+
+			data, err := Read(f.Name())
+			if err != nil {
+				t.Fatal(err)
+			}
+
+			if !bytes.Equal(want, data) {
+				t.Errorf("invalid data returned, want:\n  %q\ngot:\n  %q", want, data)
+			}
+		})
+	}
+}