Autophagy is an important regulator of cellular housekeeping that uses ubiquitin to target and remove harmful proteins. However, the ubiquitin chains used in this process are complex and incompletely understood. Researchers have developed a system that allows ubiquitin chains to be imaged in living cells, and identified a ubiquitin residue previously not known to be involved in autophagy. The system may ease future efforts to unravel the complex events surrounding ubiquitin and autophagy.