diff --git a/docs/config/index.md b/docs/config/index.md
index b0d2f59d4a62af..a8d8cb36079f0a 100644
--- a/docs/config/index.md
+++ b/docs/config/index.md
@@ -973,9 +973,9 @@ export default defineConfig({
 
 - **Type:** `string | string[]`
 
-  By default, Vite will crawl your `index.html` to detect dependencies that need to be pre-bundled. If `build.rollupOptions.input` is specified, Vite will crawl those entry points instead.
+  By default, Vite will crawl all your `.html` files to detect dependencies that need to be pre-bundled (ignoring `node_modules`, `build.outDir`, `__tests__` and `coverage`). If `build.rollupOptions.input` is specified, Vite will crawl those entry points instead.
 
-  If neither of these fit your needs, you can specify custom entries using this option - the value should be a [fast-glob pattern](https://github.com/mrmlnc/fast-glob#basic-syntax) or array of patterns that are relative from Vite project root. This will overwrite default entries inference.
+  If neither of these fit your needs, you can specify custom entries using this option - the value should be a [fast-glob pattern](https://github.com/mrmlnc/fast-glob#basic-syntax) or array of patterns that are relative from Vite project root. This will overwrite default entries inference. Only `node_modules` and `build.outDir` folders will be ignored by default when `optimizeDeps.entries` is explicitily defined. If other folders needs to be ignored, you can use an ignore pattern as part of the entries list, marked with an initial `!`.
 
 ### optimizeDeps.exclude
 
diff --git a/packages/vite/src/node/optimizer/scan.ts b/packages/vite/src/node/optimizer/scan.ts
index 549f748d9a2b58..e940617386eb35 100644
--- a/packages/vite/src/node/optimizer/scan.ts
+++ b/packages/vite/src/node/optimizer/scan.ts
@@ -142,7 +142,10 @@ function globEntries(pattern: string | string[], config: ResolvedConfig) {
     ignore: [
       '**/node_modules/**',
       `**/${config.build.outDir}/**`,
-      `**/__tests__/**`
+      // if there aren't explicit entries, also ignore other common folders
+      ...(config.optimizeDeps.entries
+        ? []
+        : [`**/__tests__/**`, `**/coverage/**`])
     ],
     absolute: true
   })