Autophagic lysosome reformation (ALR) is a cellular process in which lysosomes are reformed through scission of proto-lysosomes from tubular structures extruded from autolysosomes. Despite recent progress, the molecular mechanism of ALR is far from clear. A paper in this issue of The EMBO Journal has identified lysosome-localized PI(3)P, which is generated by the VPS34–UVRAG complex in an mTOR-dependent manner, as an important regulator of autolysosome tubule scission (Munson et al, 2015).