diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index bdabdc16a..7c09119b1 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Bugs fixed
 ----------
 
 * applehelp: Sphinx crashes if ``hiutil`` or ``codesign`` commands not found
-
+* Fix ``make clean`` abort issue when build dir contains regular files like ``DS_Store``.
 
 Release 1.4.5 (released Jul 13, 2016)
 =====================================
diff --git a/sphinx/make_mode.py b/sphinx/make_mode.py
index 67ba9e1e1..75c5ab8b2 100644
--- a/sphinx/make_mode.py
+++ b/sphinx/make_mode.py
@@ -18,13 +18,12 @@ from __future__ import print_function
 
 import os
 import sys
-import shutil
 from os import path
 from subprocess import call
 
 import sphinx
 from sphinx.util.console import bold, blue
-from sphinx.util.osutil import cd
+from sphinx.util.osutil import cd, rmtree
 
 proj_name = os.getenv('SPHINXPROJ', '<project>')
 
@@ -75,7 +74,7 @@ class Make(object):
             return 1
         print("Removing everything under %r..." % self.builddir)
         for item in os.listdir(self.builddir):
-            shutil.rmtree(self.builddir_join(item))
+            rmtree(self.builddir_join(item))
 
     def build_help(self):
         print(bold("Sphinx v%s" % sphinx.__display_version__))
diff --git a/sphinx/util/osutil.py b/sphinx/util/osutil.py
index 585dc6104..b416a8c1f 100644
--- a/sphinx/util/osutil.py
+++ b/sphinx/util/osutil.py
@@ -213,3 +213,10 @@ def cd(target_dir):
         yield
     finally:
         os.chdir(cwd)
+
+
+def rmtree(path):
+    if os.path.isdir(path):
+        shutil.rmtree(path)
+    else:
+        os.remove(path)