diff --git a/fs/log.go b/fs/log.go
index 77fc6a521..dcd726eec 100644
--- a/fs/log.go
+++ b/fs/log.go
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ import (
 	"github.com/rclone/rclone/lib/caller"
 )
 
+// logger represents the slog logging facility and should be overridden by
+// the fs/log handling code.
+var logger *slog.Logger = slog.Default()
+
 // LogLevel describes rclone's logs.  These are a subset of the syslog log levels.
 type LogLevel = Enum[logLevelChoices]
 
@@ -137,7 +141,7 @@ func LogLevelToSlog(level LogLevel) slog.Level {
 }
 
 func logSlog(level LogLevel, text string, attrs []any) {
-	slog.Log(context.Background(), LogLevelToSlog(level), text, attrs...)
+	logger.Log(context.Background(), LogLevelToSlog(level), text, attrs...)
 }
 
 func logSlogWithObject(level LogLevel, o any, text string, attrs []any) {
@@ -337,3 +341,8 @@ func PrettyPrint(in any, label string, level LogLevel) {
 	}
 	LogPrintf(level, label, "\n%s\n", string(inBytes))
 }
+
+// SetLogger overrides the slog logger using the specified handler
+func SetLogger(h slog.Handler) {
+	logger = slog.New(h)
+}
diff --git a/fs/log/log.go b/fs/log/log.go
index 76f1f6b0e..8f1896633 100644
--- a/fs/log/log.go
+++ b/fs/log/log.go
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import (
 	"context"
 	"fmt"
 	"io"
+	"log/slog"
 	"os"
 	"reflect"
 	"runtime"
@@ -201,7 +202,21 @@ func init() {
 }
 
 // InitLogging start the logging as per the command line flags
+//
+// This is called explicitly from the CLI, the librclone wrapper and
+// the test framework, but not from package init, so that importing
+// rclone as a library has no side effects on the process-wide default
+// slog logger.
 func InitLogging() {
+	// Redirect the process-wide default logger through rclone's
+	// handler so that log.Print/log.Fatal and slog.Default() (used by
+	// some standard library and third party code) end up in rclone's
+	// log output.
+	slog.SetDefault(slog.New(Handler))
+
+	// Make log.Printf logs at level Notice
+	slog.SetLogLoggerLevel(fs.SlogLevelNotice)
+
 	// Note that ci only has the defaults in at this point
 	// We set real values in logReload
 	ci := fs.GetConfig(context.Background())
diff --git a/fs/log/slog.go b/fs/log/slog.go
index b5e3c34ff..a006f94a1 100644
--- a/fs/log/slog.go
+++ b/fs/log/slog.go
@@ -27,6 +27,12 @@ var Handler = defaultHandler()
 // This will be adjusted by InitLogging to be the configured levels
 // but it is important we have a logger running regardless of whether
 // InitLogging has been called yet or not.
+//
+// Note that this only sets rclone's private logger via fs.SetLogger
+// so that importing this package has no side effects on the
+// process-wide default slog logger. The CLI and other rclone-as-a-
+// program entry points pick up the default logger redirection in
+// InitLogging instead.
 func defaultHandler() *OutputHandler {
 	// Default options for default handler
 	opts := &slog.HandlerOptions{
@@ -36,11 +42,8 @@ func defaultHandler() *OutputHandler {
 	// Create our handler
 	h := NewOutputHandler(os.Stderr, opts, logFormatDate|logFormatTime)
 
-	// Set the slog default handler
-	slog.SetDefault(slog.New(h))
-
-	// Make log.Printf logs at level Notice
-	slog.SetLogLoggerLevel(fs.SlogLevelNotice)
+	// Set rclone's internal logger so rclone logging works
+	fs.SetLogger(h)
 
 	return h
 }