diff --git a/src/borg/_item.c b/src/borg/_item.c
deleted file mode 100644
index c5c78c4074..0000000000
--- a/src/borg/_item.c
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
-#include "Python.h"
-
-/*
- * This is not quite as dark magic as it looks. We just convert the address of (pointer to)
- * a PyObject into a bytes object in _wrap_object, and convert these bytes back to the
- * pointer to the original object.
- *
- * This mainly looks a bit confusing due to our mental special-casing of "char*" from other
- * pointers.
- *
- * The big upside to this is that this neither does *any* serialization (beyond creating tiny
- * bytes objects as "stand-ins"), nor has to copy the entire object that's passed around.
- */
-
-static PyObject *
-_object_to_optr(PyObject *obj)
-{
-    /*
-     * Create a temporary reference to the object being passed around so it does not vanish.
-     * Note that we never decref this one in _unwrap_object, since we just transfer that reference
-     * there, i.e. there is an elided "Py_INCREF(x); Py_DECREF(x)".
-     * Since the reference is transferred, calls to _wrap_object and _unwrap_object must be symmetric.
-     */
-    Py_INCREF(obj);
-    return PyBytes_FromStringAndSize((const char*) &obj, sizeof(void*));
-}
-
-static PyObject *
-_optr_to_object(PyObject *bytes)
-{
-    if(!PyBytes_Check(bytes)) {
-        PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, "Cannot unwrap non-bytes object");
-        return NULL;
-    }
-    if(PyBytes_Size(bytes) != sizeof(void*)) {
-        PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, "Invalid length of bytes object");
-        return NULL;
-    }
-    PyObject *object = * (PyObject **) PyBytes_AsString(bytes);
-    return object;
-}
diff --git a/src/borg/item.pyi b/src/borg/item.pyi
index 5f63eda377..33baf21665 100644
--- a/src/borg/item.pyi
+++ b/src/borg/item.pyi
@@ -128,9 +128,6 @@ class Item(PropDict):
     def _is_type(self, typetest: Callable) -> bool: ...
     @classmethod
     def create_deleted(self, path) -> Item: ...
-    @classmethod
-    def from_optr(self, optr: Any) -> Item: ...
-    def to_optr(self) -> Any: ...
     @property
     def atime(self) -> int: ...
     @atime.setter
diff --git a/src/borg/item.pyx b/src/borg/item.pyx
index 482a14e001..bec41404ae 100644
--- a/src/borg/item.pyx
+++ b/src/borg/item.pyx
@@ -12,11 +12,6 @@ from .helpers.msgpack import timestamp_to_int, int_to_timestamp, Timestamp
 from .helpers.time import OutputTimestamp, safe_timestamp
 
 
-cdef extern from "_item.c":
-    object _object_to_optr(object obj)
-    object _optr_to_object(object bytes)
-
-
 
 
 
@@ -337,25 +332,6 @@ cdef class Item(PropDict):
                 setattr(self, attr, size)
         return size
 
-    def to_optr(self):
-        """
-        Return an "object pointer" (optr), an opaque bag of bytes.
-        The return value is effectively a reference to this object
-        that can be passed exactly once to Item.from_optr to get this
-        object back.
-
-        to_optr/from_optr must be used symmetrically,
-        don't call from_optr multiple times.
-
-        This object can't be deallocated after a call to to_optr()
-        until from_optr() is called.
-        """
-        return _object_to_optr(self)
-
-    @classmethod
-    def from_optr(self, optr):
-        return _optr_to_object(optr)
-
     @classmethod
     def create_deleted(cls, path):
         return cls(deleted=True, chunks=[], mode=0, path=path)
diff --git a/src/borg/testsuite/item_test.py b/src/borg/testsuite/item_test.py
index 9c6a5b796c..c795430fb3 100644
--- a/src/borg/testsuite/item_test.py
+++ b/src/borg/testsuite/item_test.py
@@ -152,11 +152,6 @@ def test_item_file_size_no_chunks():
     assert item.get_size() == 0
 
 
-def test_item_optr():
-    item = Item()
-    assert Item.from_optr(item.to_optr()) is item
-
-
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
     "chunk_a, chunk_b, chunks_equal",
     [