diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index 1eb2f37bb..b3934610d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Interactive improvements
 - Fish now automatically creates ``config.fish`` and the configuration directories in ``$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fish`` (by default ``~/.config/fish``) if they do not already exist.
 - ``__fish_prepend_sudo`` now toggles sudo even when it took the commandline from history instead of only adding it.
 - Fish now defaults job-control to "full" meaning it more sensibly handles assigning the terminal and process groups (:issue:`5036`, :issue:`5832`, :issue:`7721`)
+- ``backward-kill-path-component`` (Control+W) no longer erases parts of two tokens when the cursor is positioned immediately after `` /``. (:issue:`6258`).
 - ``math`` learned two new functions, ``max`` and ``min``.
 - ``$SHLVL`` is no longer incremented in non-interactive shells. This means it won't be set to values larger than 1 just because your environment happens to run some scripts in $SHELL in its startup path (:issue:`7864`).
 - Fish no longer rings the bell when flashing. The flashing should already be enough notification and the bell can be annoying (:issue:`7875`).
diff --git a/src/fish_tests.cpp b/src/fish_tests.cpp
index 5f143cd51..fcef48a1f 100644
--- a/src/fish_tests.cpp
+++ b/src/fish_tests.cpp
@@ -2716,10 +2716,15 @@ static void test_word_motion() {
     test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^/^foo/^bar/^baz/^");
     test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^echo ^--foo ^--bar^");
     test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components,
-                       L"^echo ^hi ^> /^dev/^null^");
+                       L"^echo ^hi ^> ^/^dev/^null^");
 
     test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components,
-                       L"^echo /^foo/^bar{^aaa,^bbb,^ccc}^bak/^");
+                       L"^echo ^/^foo/^bar{^aaa,^bbb,^ccc}^bak/^");
+    test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^echo ^bak ^///^");
+    test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^aaa ^@ ^@^aaa^");
+    test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^aaa ^a ^@^aaa^");
+    test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^aaa ^@@@ ^@@^aa^");
+    test_1_word_motion(word_motion_left, move_word_style_path_components, L"^aa^@@  ^aa@@^a^");
 
     test_1_word_motion(word_motion_right, move_word_style_punctuation, L"^a^ bcd^");
     test_1_word_motion(word_motion_right, move_word_style_punctuation, L"a^b^ cde^");
diff --git a/src/tokenizer.cpp b/src/tokenizer.cpp
index b95a5d523..13fb81584 100644
--- a/src/tokenizer.cpp
+++ b/src/tokenizer.cpp
@@ -752,18 +752,22 @@ bool move_word_state_machine_t::consume_char_path_components(wchar_t c) {
         s_separator,
         s_slash,
         s_path_component_characters,
+        s_initial_separator,
         s_end
     };
 
-    // std::fwprintf(stdout, L"state %d, consume '%lc'\n", state, c);
     bool consumed = false;
     while (state != s_end && !consumed) {
         switch (state) {
             case s_initial_punctuation: {
-                if (!is_path_component_character(c)) {
-                    consumed = true;
+                if (!is_path_component_character(c) && !iswspace(c)) {
+                    state = s_initial_separator;
+                } else {
+                    if (!is_path_component_character(c)) {
+                        consumed = true;
+                    }
+                    state = s_whitespace;
                 }
-                state = s_whitespace;
                 break;
             }
             case s_whitespace: {
@@ -800,6 +804,17 @@ bool move_word_state_machine_t::consume_char_path_components(wchar_t c) {
                 }
                 break;
             }
+            case s_initial_separator: {
+                if (is_path_component_character(c)) {
+                    consumed = true;
+                    state = s_path_component_characters;
+                } else if (iswspace(c)) {
+                    state = s_end;
+                } else {
+                    consumed = true;
+                }
+                break;
+            }
             case s_end:
             default: {
                 break;