diff --git a/pushbullet/filetype.py b/pushbullet/filetype.py
index a2f2be0..22ffedf 100644
--- a/pushbullet/filetype.py
+++ b/pushbullet/filetype.py
@@ -1,13 +1,22 @@
 def _magic_get_file_type(f, _):
     file_type = magic.from_buffer(f.read(1024), mime=True)
     f.seek(0)
-    return file_type.decode('utf-8')
+    return maybe_decode(file_type)
 
 
 def _guess_file_type(_, filename):
     return mimetypes.guess_type(filename)[0]
 
 
+# return str on python3.  Don't want to unconditionally
+# decode because that results in unicode on python2
+def maybe_decode(s):
+    if str == bytes:
+        return s.decode('utf-8')
+    else:
+        return s
+
+
 try:
     import magic
 except ImportError: