diff --git a/frappe/email/receive.py b/frappe/email/receive.py
index 6af6c3cebe..ecee7d583c 100644
--- a/frappe/email/receive.py
+++ b/frappe/email/receive.py
@@ -412,6 +412,9 @@ class Email:
 			# assume that the encoding is utf-8
 			self.subject = safe_decode(self.subject)[:140]
 
+		if isinstance(self.subject, bytes):
+			self.subject = self.subject.decode("utf8", "replace")  # last resort
+
 		if not self.subject:
 			self.subject = "No Subject"