diff --git a/include/qemu/option.h b/include/qemu/option.h
index 844587cab3..eb4097889d 100644
--- a/include/qemu/option.h
+++ b/include/qemu/option.h
@@ -33,7 +33,6 @@ const char *get_opt_value(const char *p, char **value);
 void parse_option_size(const char *name, const char *value,
                        uint64_t *ret, Error **errp);
 bool has_help_option(const char *param);
-bool is_valid_option_list(const char *param);
 
 enum QemuOptType {
     QEMU_OPT_STRING = 0,  /* no parsing (use string as-is)                        */
diff --git a/qemu-img.c b/qemu-img.c
index d36b21b758..cc51db7ed4 100644
--- a/qemu-img.c
+++ b/qemu-img.c
@@ -223,6 +223,32 @@ static bool qemu_img_object_print_help(const char *type, QemuOpts *opts)
     return true;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Is @optarg safe for accumulate_options()?
+ * It is when multiple of them can be joined together separated by ','.
+ * To make that work, @optarg must not start with ',' (or else a
+ * separating ',' preceding it gets escaped), and it must not end with
+ * an odd number of ',' (or else a separating ',' following it gets
+ * escaped).
+ */
+static bool is_valid_option_list(const char *optarg)
+{
+    size_t len = strlen(optarg);
+    size_t i;
+
+    if (optarg[0] == ',') {
+        return false;
+    }
+
+    for (i = len; i > 0 && optarg[i - 1] == ','; i--) {
+    }
+    if ((len - i) % 2) {
+        return false;
+    }
+
+    return true;
+}
+
 static int accumulate_options(char **options, char *optarg)
 {
     char *new_options;
diff --git a/util/qemu-option.c b/util/qemu-option.c
index 2d0d24ee27..9542988183 100644
--- a/util/qemu-option.c
+++ b/util/qemu-option.c
@@ -165,28 +165,6 @@ void parse_option_size(const char *name, const char *value,
     *ret = size;
 }
 
-bool is_valid_option_list(const char *p)
-{
-    char *value = NULL;
-    bool result = false;
-
-    while (*p) {
-        p = get_opt_value(p, &value);
-        if ((*p && !*++p) ||
-            (!*value || *value == ',')) {
-            goto out;
-        }
-
-        g_free(value);
-        value = NULL;
-    }
-
-    result = true;
-out:
-    g_free(value);
-    return result;
-}
-
 static const char *opt_type_to_string(enum QemuOptType type)
 {
     switch (type) {