diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index f076be5dfee..1981c523426 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -53,6 +53,9 @@ New Features
   in postings for fast wildcard (MultiTermQuery) highlighting.
   (David Smiley, Timothy Rodriguez)
 
+* LUCENE-7490: SimpleQueryParser now parses '*' to MatchAllDocsQuery
+  (Lee Hinman via Mike McCandless)
+
 Bug Fixes
 
 * LUCENE-7472: MultiFieldQueryParser.getFieldQuery() drops queries that are
diff --git a/lucene/queryparser/src/java/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/SimpleQueryParser.java b/lucene/queryparser/src/java/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/SimpleQueryParser.java
index a417d1b889c..6e05aec6e8c 100644
--- a/lucene/queryparser/src/java/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/SimpleQueryParser.java
+++ b/lucene/queryparser/src/java/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/SimpleQueryParser.java
@@ -145,6 +145,10 @@ public class SimpleQueryParser extends QueryBuilder {
 
   /** Parses the query text and returns parsed query */
   public Query parse(String queryText) {
+    if ("*".equals(queryText.trim())) {
+      return new MatchAllDocsQuery();
+    }
+
     char data[] = queryText.toCharArray();
     char buffer[] = new char[data.length];
 
diff --git a/lucene/queryparser/src/test/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/TestSimpleQueryParser.java b/lucene/queryparser/src/test/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/TestSimpleQueryParser.java
index a8e232723c8..d70a22c5173 100644
--- a/lucene/queryparser/src/test/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/TestSimpleQueryParser.java
+++ b/lucene/queryparser/src/test/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/simple/TestSimpleQueryParser.java
@@ -623,4 +623,11 @@ public class TestSimpleQueryParser extends LuceneTestCase {
       parseKeyword(sb.toString(), TestUtil.nextInt(random(), 0, 1024)); // no exception
     }
   }
+
+  public void testStarBecomesMatchAll() throws Exception {
+    Query q = parse("*");
+    assertEquals(q, new MatchAllDocsQuery());
+    q = parse(" *   ");
+    assertEquals(q, new MatchAllDocsQuery());
+  }
 }