diff --git a/apidoc/ostree-sections.txt b/apidoc/ostree-sections.txt
index 56c5c94e..5e111a96 100644
--- a/apidoc/ostree-sections.txt
+++ b/apidoc/ostree-sections.txt
@@ -89,7 +89,6 @@ OSTREE_VERSION_HEX
 <FILE>ostree-core</FILE>
 OSTREE_MAX_METADATA_SIZE
 OSTREE_MAX_METADATA_WARN_SIZE
-OSTREE_MAX_RECURSION
 OstreeObjectType
 OSTREE_OBJECT_TYPE_IS_META
 OSTREE_OBJECT_TYPE_LAST
diff --git a/src/libostree/ostree-core.h b/src/libostree/ostree-core.h
index c530cea3..c1e014e2 100644
--- a/src/libostree/ostree-core.h
+++ b/src/libostree/ostree-core.h
@@ -44,13 +44,6 @@ G_BEGIN_DECLS
  */
 #define OSTREE_MAX_METADATA_WARN_SIZE (7 * 1024 * 1024)
 
-/**
- * OSTREE_MAX_RECURSION:
- * 
- * Maximum depth of metadata.
- */
-#define OSTREE_MAX_RECURSION (256)
-
 /**
  * OSTREE_SHA256_DIGEST_LEN:
  *
diff --git a/src/libostree/ostree-repo-pull.c b/src/libostree/ostree-repo-pull.c
index 751129e6..536ba58f 100644
--- a/src/libostree/ostree-repo-pull.c
+++ b/src/libostree/ostree-repo-pull.c
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ typedef struct {
   guchar csum[OSTREE_SHA256_DIGEST_LEN];
   char *path;
   OstreeObjectType objtype;
-  guint recursion_depth;
+  guint recursion_depth; /* NB: not used anymore, though might be nice to print */
 } ScanObjectQueueData;
 
 static void start_fetch (OtPullData *pull_data, FetchObjectData *fetch);
@@ -564,9 +564,6 @@ scan_dirtree_object (OtPullData   *pull_data,
                      GCancellable *cancellable,
                      GError      **error)
 {
-  if (recursion_depth > OSTREE_MAX_RECURSION)
-    return glnx_throw (error, "Exceeded maximum recursion");
-
   g_autoptr(GVariant) tree = NULL;
   if (!ostree_repo_load_variant (pull_data->repo, OSTREE_OBJECT_TYPE_DIR_TREE, checksum,
                                  &tree, error))
@@ -1188,13 +1185,6 @@ scan_commit_object (OtPullData         *pull_data,
   gint depth;
   gboolean is_partial;
 
-  if (recursion_depth > OSTREE_MAX_RECURSION)
-    {
-      g_set_error (error, G_IO_ERROR, G_IO_ERROR_FAILED,
-                   "Exceeded maximum recursion");
-      goto out;
-    }
-
   if (g_hash_table_lookup_extended (pull_data->commit_to_depth, checksum,
                                     NULL, &depthp))
     {