diff --git a/xdg-desktop-search b/xdg-desktop-search
index f193c5f..9c39508 100755
--- a/xdg-desktop-search
+++ b/xdg-desktop-search
@@ -167,6 +167,20 @@ parse_options() {
   [[ "${#search[@]}" -gt 0 ]] && search_regex="^$search_directives_regex=.*($(join "|" ${search[@]}))"
 }
 
+valid_data_dirs() {
+  local dirs=$1
+  local IFS=:
+  local result=()
+
+  for dir in $dirs ; do
+    if [[ -d $dir ]] && [[ -r $dir ]] ; then
+      result+=( "$dir" )
+    fi
+  done
+
+  echo "${result[*]}"
+}
+
 ##
 # Main Program
 
@@ -176,7 +190,7 @@ parse_options $@
 
 found=0
 
-for _data_dir in $xdg_data_dirs ; do
+for _data_dir in valid_data_dirs "$xdg_data_dirs" ; do
   data_dir=$(realpath --canonicalize-missing --no-symlinks "$_data_dir")
   applications="$data_dir/applications"