diff --git a/mlx/backend/accelerate/softmax.cpp b/mlx/backend/accelerate/softmax.cpp
index fcd8fbe50..9e7ddf632 100644
--- a/mlx/backend/accelerate/softmax.cpp
+++ b/mlx/backend/accelerate/softmax.cpp
@@ -274,7 +274,12 @@ void Softmax::eval_cpu(const std::vector<array>& inputs, array& out) {
 
   // Make sure that the last dimension is contiguous
   auto check_input = [](array x) {
-    if (x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1] == 1) {
+    bool no_copy = x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1] == 1;
+    if (x.ndim() > 1) {
+      auto s = x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1];
+      no_copy &= (s == 0 || s == x.shape().back());
+    }
+    if (no_copy) {
       return x;
     } else {
       array x_copy(x.shape(), x.dtype(), nullptr, {});
diff --git a/mlx/backend/common/softmax.cpp b/mlx/backend/common/softmax.cpp
index 90874c72d..564fd1f22 100644
--- a/mlx/backend/common/softmax.cpp
+++ b/mlx/backend/common/softmax.cpp
@@ -53,7 +53,12 @@ void Softmax::eval(const std::vector<array>& inputs, array& out) {
 
   // Make sure that the last dimension is contiguous
   auto check_input = [](array x) {
-    if (x.strides().back() == 1) {
+    bool no_copy = x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1] == 1;
+    if (x.ndim() > 1) {
+      auto s = x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1];
+      no_copy &= (s == 0 || s == x.shape().back());
+    }
+    if (no_copy) {
       return x;
     } else {
       array x_copy(x.shape(), x.dtype(), nullptr, {});
diff --git a/mlx/backend/metal/softmax.cpp b/mlx/backend/metal/softmax.cpp
index 33ec8014c..7edc91b55 100644
--- a/mlx/backend/metal/softmax.cpp
+++ b/mlx/backend/metal/softmax.cpp
@@ -22,7 +22,12 @@ void Softmax::eval_gpu(const std::vector<array>& inputs, array& out) {
   // Make sure that the last dimension is contiguous
   std::vector<array> copies;
   auto check_input = [&copies, &s](const array& x) {
-    if (x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1] == 1) {
+    bool no_copy = x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1] == 1;
+    if (x.ndim() > 1) {
+      auto s = x.strides()[x.ndim() - 1];
+      no_copy &= (s == 0 || s == x.shape().back());
+    }
+    if (no_copy) {
       return x;
     } else {
       array x_copy(x.shape(), x.dtype(), nullptr, {});
diff --git a/python/tests/test_ops.py b/python/tests/test_ops.py
index 9ad6d5a53..433890237 100644
--- a/python/tests/test_ops.py
+++ b/python/tests/test_ops.py
@@ -1386,6 +1386,11 @@ class TestOps(mlx_tests.MLXTestCase):
             self.assertTrue((a[:-1] < 1e-9).all())
             self.assertEqual(a[-1], 1)
 
+        # Sliced inputs
+        y = mx.random.uniform(shape=(8, 4))
+        out = mx.softmax(y[:, 0:2], axis=-1)
+        self.assertAlmostEqual(out.sum().item(), 8.0)
+
     def test_concatenate(self):
         a_npy = np.random.randn(32, 32, 32)
         b_npy = np.random.randn(32, 32, 32)