diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh b/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh
index 32fdb1000e27..5bedd1a9f9ca 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh
@@ -7,21 +7,16 @@ gatherLibraries() {
 addEnvHooks "$targetOffset" gatherLibraries
 
 isExecutable() {
-    [ "$(file -b -N --mime-type "$1")" = application/x-executable ]
-}
-
-findElfs() {
-    find "$1" -type f -exec "$SHELL" -c '
-        while [ -n "$1" ]; do
-            mimeType="$(file -b -N --mime-type "$1")"
-            if [ "$mimeType" = application/x-executable \
-              -o "$mimeType" = application/x-pie-executable \
-              -o "$mimeType" = application/x-sharedlib ]; then
-                echo "$1"
-            fi
-            shift
-        done
-    ' -- {} +
+    # For dynamically linked ELF files it would be enough to check just for the
+    # INTERP section. However, we won't catch statically linked executables as
+    # they only have an ELF type of EXEC but no INTERP.
+    #
+    # So what we do here is just check whether *either* the ELF type is EXEC
+    # *or* there is an INTERP section. This also catches position-independent
+    # executables, as they typically have an INTERP section but their ELF type
+    # is DYN.
+    LANG=C readelf -h -l "$1" 2> /dev/null \
+        | grep -q '^ *Type: *EXEC\>\|^ *INTERP\>'
 }
 
 # We cache dependencies so that we don't need to search through all of them on
@@ -152,24 +147,73 @@ autoPatchelfFile() {
     fi
 }
 
+# Can be used to manually add additional directories with shared object files
+# to be included for the next autoPatchelf invocation.
+addAutoPatchelfSearchPath() {
+    local -a findOpts=()
+
+    # XXX: Somewhat similar to the one in the autoPatchelf function, maybe make
+    #      it DRY someday...
+    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
+        case "$1" in
+            --) shift; break;;
+            --no-recurse) shift; findOpts+=("-maxdepth" 1);;
+            --*)
+                echo "addAutoPatchelfSearchPath: ERROR: Invalid command line" \
+                     "argument: $1" >&2
+                return 1;;
+            *) break;;
+        esac
+    done
+
+    cachedDependencies+=(
+        $(find "$@" "${findOpts[@]}" \! -type d \
+               \( -name '*.so' -o -name '*.so.*' \))
+    )
+}
+
 autoPatchelf() {
+    local norecurse=
+
+    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
+        case "$1" in
+            --) shift; break;;
+            --no-recurse) shift; norecurse=1;;
+            --*)
+                echo "autoPatchelf: ERROR: Invalid command line" \
+                     "argument: $1" >&2
+                return 1;;
+            *) break;;
+        esac
+    done
+
+    if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
+        echo "autoPatchelf: No paths to patch specified." >&2
+        return 1
+    fi
+
     echo "automatically fixing dependencies for ELF files" >&2
 
     # Add all shared objects of the current output path to the start of
     # cachedDependencies so that it's choosen first in findDependency.
-    cachedDependencies+=(
-        $(find "$prefix" \! -type d \( -name '*.so' -o -name '*.so.*' \))
-    )
-    local elffile
+    addAutoPatchelfSearchPath ${norecurse:+--no-recurse} -- "$@"
 
     # Here we actually have a subshell, which also means that
     # $cachedDependencies is final at this point, so whenever we want to run
     # findDependency outside of this, the dependency cache needs to be rebuilt
     # from scratch, so keep this in mind if you want to run findDependency
     # outside of this function.
-    findElfs "$prefix" | while read -r elffile; do
-        autoPatchelfFile "$elffile"
-    done
+    while IFS= read -r -d $'\0' file; do
+      isELF "$file" || continue
+      segmentHeaders="$(LANG=C readelf -l "$file")"
+      # Skip if the ELF file doesn't have segment headers (eg. object files).
+      echo "$segmentHeaders" | grep -q '^Program Headers:' || continue
+      if isExecutable "$file"; then
+          # Skip if the executable is statically linked.
+          echo "$segmentHeaders" | grep -q "^ *INTERP\\>" || continue
+      fi
+      autoPatchelfFile "$file"
+    done < <(find "$@" ${norecurse:+-maxdepth 1} -type f -print0)
 }
 
 # XXX: This should ultimately use fixupOutputHooks but we currently don't have
@@ -180,6 +224,11 @@ autoPatchelf() {
 # So what we do here is basically run in postFixup and emulate the same
 # behaviour as fixupOutputHooks because the setup hook for patchelf is run in
 # fixupOutput and the postFixup hook runs later.
-postFixupHooks+=(
-    'for output in $outputs; do prefix="${!output}" autoPatchelf; done'
-)
+postFixupHooks+=('
+    if [ -z "$dontAutoPatchelf" ]; then
+        autoPatchelf -- $(for output in $outputs; do
+            [ -e "${!output}" ] || continue
+            echo "${!output}"
+        done)
+    fi
+')
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index e29766ed7f49..e812c38c2d4a 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -81,8 +81,7 @@ with pkgs;
     { deps = [ autoconf264 automake111x gettext libtool ]; }
     ../build-support/setup-hooks/autoreconf.sh;
 
-  autoPatchelfHook = makeSetupHook
-    { name = "auto-patchelf-hook"; deps = [ file ]; }
+  autoPatchelfHook = makeSetupHook { name = "auto-patchelf-hook"; }
     ../build-support/setup-hooks/auto-patchelf.sh;
 
   ensureNewerSourcesHook = { year }: makeSetupHook {}