diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index b4b95229..8ca3ee1d 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -31,3 +31,10 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 
 [tool.ruff]
 ignore = ["E501"]
+
+# pyproject.toml
+[tool.pytest.ini_options]
+filterwarnings = [
+    "error",
+    "ignore::UserWarning",
+]
diff --git a/test/test_encode.py b/test/test_encode.py
index 8dd47266..8163e533 100644
--- a/test/test_encode.py
+++ b/test/test_encode.py
@@ -46,10 +46,6 @@ def test_bad_args(self):
                 self.rpkm.astype(np.float64), self.tnfs, self.lens, batchsize=32
             )
 
-        # Batchsize is too large
-        with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
-            vamb.encode.make_dataloader(self.rpkm, self.tnfs, self.lens, batchsize=256)
-
     def test_destroy(self):
         copy_rpkm = self.rpkm.copy()
         copy_tnfs = self.tnfs.copy()
@@ -155,6 +151,16 @@ def test_bad_args(self):
         with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
             vamb.encode.VAE(5, dropout=-0.001)
 
+    def test_samples_too_small(self):
+        vae = vamb.encode.VAE(self.rpkm.shape[1])
+        r = self.rpkm.copy()
+        t = self.tnfs.copy()
+        l = self.lens.copy()
+
+        with self.assertWarns(UserWarning):
+            dl = vamb.encode.make_dataloader(r, t, l, batchsize=64)
+            vae.trainmodel(dl, batchsteps=None, nepochs=2)
+
     def test_loss_falls(self):
         vae = vamb.encode.VAE(self.rpkm.shape[1])
         rpkm_copy = self.rpkm.copy()
diff --git a/vamb/encode.py b/vamb/encode.py
index 0753c7f1..3f30b127 100644
--- a/vamb/encode.py
+++ b/vamb/encode.py
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 from torch import Tensor
 from torch import nn as _nn
 from math import log as _log
+import warnings
 
 __doc__ = """Encode a depths matrix and a tnf matrix to latent representation.
 
@@ -86,11 +87,12 @@ def make_dataloader(
     if not (rpkm.dtype == tnf.dtype == _np.float32):
         raise ValueError("TNF and RPKM must be Numpy arrays of dtype float32")
 
-    if len(lengths) < batchsize:
-        raise ValueError(
-            "Fewer sequences left after filtering than the batch size. "
-            + "This probably means you try to run on a too small dataset (below ~5k sequences), "
-            + "Check the log file, and verify BAM file content is sensible."
+    if len(rpkm) < 20000:
+        warnings.warn(
+            f"WARNING: Creating DataLoader with only {len(rpkm)} sequences. "
+            "We normally expect 20,000 sequences or more to prevent overfitting. "
+            "As a deep learning model, VAEs are prone to overfitting with too few sequences. "
+            "You may want to lower the beta parameter, or use a different binner altogether."
         )
 
     # Copy if not destroy - this way we can have all following operations in-place
@@ -579,17 +581,6 @@ def trainmodel(
                 raise ValueError("All elements of batchsteps must be integers")
             if max(batchsteps, default=0) >= nepochs:
                 raise ValueError("Max batchsteps must not equal or exceed nepochs")
-            last_batchsize = dataloader.batch_size * 2 ** len(batchsteps)
-            if len(dataloader.dataset) < last_batchsize:  # type: ignore
-                raise ValueError(
-                    f"Last batch size of {last_batchsize} exceeds dataset length "
-                    f"of {len(dataloader.dataset)}. "  # type: ignore
-                    "This means you have too few contigs left after filtering to train. "
-                    "It is not adviced to run Vamb with fewer than 10,000 sequences "
-                    "after filtering. "
-                    "Please check the Vamb log file to see where the sequences were "
-                    "filtered away, and verify BAM files has sensible content."
-                )
             batchsteps_set = set(batchsteps)
 
         # Get number of features