diff --git a/fsspec/core.py b/fsspec/core.py
index c5bce58ab..a1e15b2eb 100644
--- a/fsspec/core.py
+++ b/fsspec/core.py
@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
+from __future__ import annotations
+
 import io
 import logging
 import os
 import re
 from glob import has_magic
+from pathlib import Path
 
 # for backwards compat, we export cache things from here too
 from .caching import (  # noqa: F401
@@ -469,7 +472,11 @@ def open(
     return out[0]
 
 
-def open_local(url, mode="rb", **storage_options):
+def open_local(
+    url: str | list[str] | Path | list[Path],
+    mode: str = "rb",
+    **storage_options: dict,
+) -> str | list[str]:
     """Open file(s) which can be resolved to local
 
     For files which either are local, or get downloaded upon open
@@ -493,7 +500,7 @@ def open_local(url, mode="rb", **storage_options):
         )
     with of as files:
         paths = [f.name for f in files]
-    if isinstance(url, str) and not has_magic(url):
+    if (isinstance(url, str) and not has_magic(url)) or isinstance(url, Path):
         return paths[0]
     return paths
 
diff --git a/fsspec/tests/test_core.py b/fsspec/tests/test_core.py
index 6e8e1c751..a14f68881 100644
--- a/fsspec/tests/test_core.py
+++ b/fsspec/tests/test_core.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 import tempfile
 import zipfile
 from contextlib import contextmanager
+from pathlib import Path
 
 import pytest
 
@@ -101,7 +102,7 @@ def test_openfile_open(m):
     assert m.size("somepath") == 5
 
 
-def test_open_local():
+def test_open_local_w_cache():
     d1 = str(tempfile.mkdtemp())
     f1 = os.path.join(d1, "f1")
     open(f1, "w").write("test1")
@@ -112,6 +113,45 @@ def test_open_local():
     assert d2 in fn
 
 
+def test_open_local_w_magic():
+    d1 = str(tempfile.mkdtemp())
+    f1 = os.path.join(d1, "f1")
+    open(f1, "w").write("test1")
+    fn = open_local(os.path.join(d1, "f*"))
+    assert len(fn) == 1
+    assert isinstance(fn, list)
+
+
+def test_open_local_w_list_of_str():
+    d1 = str(tempfile.mkdtemp())
+    f1 = os.path.join(d1, "f1")
+    open(f1, "w").write("test1")
+    fn = open_local([f1, f1])
+    assert len(fn) == 2
+    assert isinstance(fn, list)
+    assert all(isinstance(elem, str) for elem in fn)
+
+
+def test_open_local_w_path():
+    d1 = str(tempfile.mkdtemp())
+    f1 = os.path.join(d1, "f1")
+    open(f1, "w").write("test1")
+    p = Path(f1)
+    fn = open_local(p)
+    assert isinstance(fn, str)
+
+
+def test_open_local_w_list_of_path():
+    d1 = str(tempfile.mkdtemp())
+    f1 = os.path.join(d1, "f1")
+    open(f1, "w").write("test1")
+    p = Path(f1)
+    fn = open_local([p, p])
+    assert len(fn) == 2
+    assert isinstance(fn, list)
+    assert all(isinstance(elem, str) for elem in fn)
+
+
 def test_xz_lzma_compressions():
     pytest.importorskip("lzma")
     # Ensure that both 'xz' and 'lzma' compression names can be parsed