diff --git a/ggml.c b/ggml.c
index ed2cbe30f..94ae9b9ef 100644
--- a/ggml.c
+++ b/ggml.c
@@ -2542,10 +2542,14 @@ static inline bool ggml_is_padded_1d(const struct ggml_tensor * tensor) {
         tensor->nb[3] == tensor->nb[2]*tensor->ne[2];
 }
 
-static inline bool ggml_is_empty(const struct ggml_tensor * tensor) {
-    // the stride of the last dimension is zero if any of the previous dimensions has no elements
-    // but to be sure, the number of elements in the last dimension must also be checked
-    return tensor->nb[GGML_MAX_DIMS - 1] == 0 || tensor->ne[GGML_MAX_DIMS - 1] == 0;
+GGML_CALL bool ggml_is_empty(const struct ggml_tensor * tensor) {
+    for (int i = 0; i < GGML_MAX_DIMS; ++i) {
+        if (tensor->ne[i] == 0) {
+            // empty if any dimension has no elements
+            return true;
+        }
+    }
+    return false;
 }
 
 bool ggml_are_same_shape(const struct ggml_tensor * t0, const struct ggml_tensor * t1) {
diff --git a/ggml.h b/ggml.h
index c937d4a53..7bb870f79 100644
--- a/ggml.h
+++ b/ggml.h
@@ -744,6 +744,7 @@ extern "C" {
     GGML_API GGML_CALL bool ggml_is_transposed(const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
     GGML_API GGML_CALL bool ggml_is_contiguous(const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
     GGML_API GGML_CALL bool ggml_is_permuted  (const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
+    GGML_API GGML_CALL bool ggml_is_empty     (const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
     GGML_API           bool ggml_is_scalar    (const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
     GGML_API           bool ggml_is_vector    (const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);
     GGML_API           bool ggml_is_matrix    (const struct ggml_tensor * tensor);