diff --git a/.tidyallrc b/.tidyallrc
index 71383ef08813..eedb5ff80002 100644
--- a/.tidyallrc
+++ b/.tidyallrc
@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
 ; Notice that this does include also non-Perl files in script/ so it is
 ; suggested to use tools/tidy to cover all appropriate files. "tidyall -a"
 ; will try to cover too much and fail on the non-Perl files
-select = **/*.{pl,pm,t} script/*
+select = {tools,lib,t}/**/*.{pl,pm,t} script/*
 argv = --profile=$ROOT/.perltidyrc