diff --git a/src/fish_tests.cpp b/src/fish_tests.cpp
index 43dbdb753..4f9b9fddb 100644
--- a/src/fish_tests.cpp
+++ b/src/fish_tests.cpp
@@ -3456,9 +3456,9 @@ void history_tests_t::test_history_formats() {
         err(L"Couldn't open file tests/history_sample_bash");
     } else {
         // The results are in the reverse order that they appear in the bash history file.
-        // We don't expect whitespace to be elided.
+        // We don't expect whitespace to be elided (#4908: except for leading/trailing whitespace)
         const wchar_t *expected[] = {L"sleep 123",
-                                     L"    final line",
+                                     L"final line",
                                      L"echo supsup",
                                      L"export XVAR='exported'",
                                      L"history --help",
diff --git a/src/history.cpp b/src/history.cpp
index cd016b010..eca9fa638 100644
--- a/src/history.cpp
+++ b/src/history.cpp
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@
 #include "path.h"
 #include "reader.h"
 #include "tnode.h"
+#include "wcstringutil.h"
 #include "wildcard.h"  // IWYU pragma: keep
 #include "wutil.h"     // IWYU pragma: keep
 
@@ -556,9 +557,12 @@ bool history_item_t::merge(const history_item_t &item) {
 }
 
 history_item_t::history_item_t(const wcstring &str, time_t when, history_identifier_t ident)
-    : contents(str), contents_lower(L""), creation_timestamp(when), identifier(ident) {
-    for (wcstring::const_iterator it = str.begin(); it != str.end(); ++it) {
-        contents_lower.push_back(towlower(*it));
+    : creation_timestamp(when), identifier(ident) {
+
+    contents = trim(str);
+    contents_lower.reserve(contents.size());
+    for (const auto &c : contents) {
+        contents_lower.push_back(towlower(c));
     }
 }