diff --git a/src/vs/workbench/contrib/codeEditor/browser/saveParticipants.ts b/src/vs/workbench/contrib/codeEditor/browser/saveParticipants.ts
index 5f4725e8f56..ce600feb10c 100644
--- a/src/vs/workbench/contrib/codeEditor/browser/saveParticipants.ts
+++ b/src/vs/workbench/contrib/codeEditor/browser/saveParticipants.ts
@@ -156,12 +156,12 @@ export class TrimFinalNewLinesParticipant implements ITextFileSaveParticipant {
 	}
 
 	/**
-	 * returns 0 if the entire file is empty or whitespace only
+	 * returns 0 if the entire file is empty
 	 */
-	private findLastLineWithContent(model: ITextModel): number {
+	private findLastNonEmptyLine(model: ITextModel): number {
 		for (let lineNumber = model.getLineCount(); lineNumber >= 1; lineNumber--) {
 			const lineContent = model.getLineContent(lineNumber);
-			if (strings.lastNonWhitespaceIndex(lineContent) !== -1) {
+			if (lineContent.length > 0) {
 				// this line has content
 				return lineNumber;
 			}
@@ -193,8 +193,8 @@ export class TrimFinalNewLinesParticipant implements ITextFileSaveParticipant {
 			}
 		}
 
-		const lastLineNumberWithContent = this.findLastLineWithContent(model);
-		const deleteFromLineNumber = Math.max(lastLineNumberWithContent + 1, cannotTouchLineNumber + 1);
+		const lastNonEmptyLine = this.findLastNonEmptyLine(model);
+		const deleteFromLineNumber = Math.max(lastNonEmptyLine + 1, cannotTouchLineNumber + 1);
 		const deletionRange = model.validateRange(new Range(deleteFromLineNumber, 1, lineCount, model.getLineMaxColumn(lineCount)));
 
 		if (deletionRange.isEmpty()) {