diff --git a/src/Buffer.test.ts b/src/Buffer.test.ts
index 2a244472..53de19b7 100644
--- a/src/Buffer.test.ts
+++ b/src/Buffer.test.ts
@@ -1278,7 +1278,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
       const s = terminal.buffer.iterator(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 10; i < input.length; ++i) {
-        const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
+        const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i, true);
         const j = (i - 0) << 1;
         assert.deepEqual([(j / terminal.cols) | 0, j % terminal.cols], bufferIndex);
       }
@@ -1290,7 +1290,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
       const s = terminal.buffer.iterator(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
-        const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
+        const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i, true);
         assert.equal(input[i], terminal.buffer.lines.get(bufferIndex[0]).get(bufferIndex[1])[CHAR_DATA_CHAR_INDEX]);
       }
     });
@@ -1302,7 +1302,7 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
       const s = terminal.buffer.iterator(true).next().content;
       assert.equal(input, s);
       for (let i = 0; i < input.length; ++i) {
-        const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i);
+        const bufferIndex = terminal.buffer.stringIndexToBufferIndex(0, i, true);
         assert.equal(
           (!(i % 3))
             ? input[i]
@@ -1312,6 +1312,13 @@ describe('Buffer', () => {
           terminal.buffer.lines.get(bufferIndex[0]).get(bufferIndex[1])[CHAR_DATA_CHAR_INDEX]);
       }
     });
+
+    it('should handle \t in lines correctly', () => {
+      const input = '\thttps://google.de';
+      terminal.writeSync(input);
+      const s = terminal.buffer.iterator(true).next().content;
+      assert.equal(s, Array(terminal.getOption('tabStopWidth') + 1).join(' ') + 'https://google.de');
+    });
   });
   describe('BufferStringIterator', function(): void {
     it('iterator does not overflow buffer limits', function(): void {
diff --git a/src/Buffer.ts b/src/Buffer.ts
index bc2d5f20..7f4b6071 100644
--- a/src/Buffer.ts
+++ b/src/Buffer.ts
@@ -449,14 +449,19 @@ export class Buffer implements IBuffer {
    * @param stringIndex index within the string
    * @param startCol column offset the string was retrieved from
    */
-  public stringIndexToBufferIndex(lineIndex: number, stringIndex: number): BufferIndex {
+  public stringIndexToBufferIndex(lineIndex: number, stringIndex: number, trimRight: boolean = false): BufferIndex {
     while (stringIndex) {
       const line = this.lines.get(lineIndex);
       if (!line) {
         return [-1, -1];
       }
-      for (let i = 0; i < line.length; ++i) {
-        stringIndex -= line.get(i)[CHAR_DATA_CHAR_INDEX].length;
+      const length = (trimRight) ? line.getTrimmedLength() : line.length;
+      for (let i = 0; i < length; ++i) {
+        if (line.get(i)[CHAR_DATA_WIDTH_INDEX]) {
+          // empty cells report a string length of 0, but get replaced
+          // with a whitespace in translateToString, thus replace with 1
+          stringIndex -= line.get(i)[CHAR_DATA_CHAR_INDEX].length || 1;
+        }
         if (stringIndex < 0) {
           return [lineIndex, i];
         }