diff --git oak-run/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/run/CheckCommand.java oak-run/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/run/CheckCommand.java
index 8406604739..ad7e404840 100644
--- oak-run/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/run/CheckCommand.java
+++ oak-run/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/run/CheckCommand.java
@@ -51,8 +51,8 @@ class CheckCommand implements Command {
                 .withRequiredArg().ofType(String.class).withValuesSeparatedBy(',').defaultsTo("/");
         OptionSpec<?> head = parser.accepts("head", "checks only latest /root (i.e without checkpoints)");
         ArgumentAcceptingOptionSpec<String> cp = parser.accepts(
-                "checkpoints", "checks only specified checkpoints (comma separated); leave empty to check all")
-                .withOptionalArg().ofType(String.class).withValuesSeparatedBy(',').defaultsTo("/checkpoints");
+                "checkpoints", "checks only specified checkpoints (comma separated); use --checkpoints all to check all checkpoints")
+                .withOptionalArg().ofType(String.class).withValuesSeparatedBy(',').defaultsTo("all");
         OptionSpec<?> ioStatistics = parser.accepts("io-stats", "Print I/O statistics (only for oak-segment-tar)");
 
         OptionSet options = parser.parse(args);
diff --git oak-segment-tar/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/segment/file/tooling/ConsistencyChecker.java oak-segment-tar/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/segment/file/tooling/ConsistencyChecker.java
index 7fcc44e039..7f7d9c98b4 100644
--- oak-segment-tar/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/segment/file/tooling/ConsistencyChecker.java
+++ oak-segment-tar/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/segment/file/tooling/ConsistencyChecker.java
@@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ public class ConsistencyChecker implements Closeable {
             if (!checkpoints.isEmpty()) {
                 checkpointsSet.addAll(checkpoints);
 
-                if (checkpointsSet.remove("/checkpoints")) {
+                if (checkpointsSet.remove("all")) {
                     checkpointsSet = Sets
                             .newLinkedHashSet(SegmentNodeStoreBuilders.builder(checker.store).build().checkpoints());
                 }