diff --git a/HISTORY.md b/HISTORY.md
index 034676b268..dbae316f5c 100644
--- a/HISTORY.md
+++ b/HISTORY.md
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 ### New Features
 * Support Multiple DB paths in universal style compactions
 * Add feature of storing plain table index and bloom filter in SST file.
+* CompactRange() will never output compacted files to level 0. This used to be the case when all the compaction input files were at level 0.
 
 ### Public API changes
 * DBOptions.db_paths now is a vector of a DBPath structure which indicates both of path and target size
diff --git a/db/db_impl.cc b/db/db_impl.cc
index 986fda3e30..09ea62ef92 100644
--- a/db/db_impl.cc
+++ b/db/db_impl.cc
@@ -1638,10 +1638,12 @@ Status DBImpl::CompactRange(ColumnFamilyHandle* column_family,
   }
   for (int level = 0; level <= max_level_with_files; level++) {
     // in case the compaction is unversal or if we're compacting the
-    // bottom-most level, the output level will be the same as input one
+    // bottom-most level, the output level will be the same as input one.
+    // level 0 can never be the bottommost level (i.e. if all files are in level
+    // 0, we will compact to level 1)
     if (cfd->options()->compaction_style == kCompactionStyleUniversal ||
         cfd->options()->compaction_style == kCompactionStyleFIFO ||
-        level == max_level_with_files) {
+        (level == max_level_with_files && level > 0)) {
       s = RunManualCompaction(cfd, level, level, target_path_id, begin, end);
     } else {
       s = RunManualCompaction(cfd, level, level + 1, target_path_id, begin,