Whether or not mitophagy depends on prior mitochondrial fragmentation by the canonical mitochondrial division machinery is controversial. In this issue, Yamashita et al. (2016. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201605093) report that mitochondrial fragments start to bud and divide from mitochondrial tubules when in tight association with forming autophagosomes, but independently of the mitochondrial division factor Drp1/Dnm1.