A hand-held working tool has a housing and an air cooled internal combustion engine with cooling ribs positioned in the housing. A sealed carburetor box is connected to the internal combustion engine. A blower is positioned in the housing for supplying cooling air to the combustion engine. The blower sucks in cooling air in the axial direction of the blower and conveys it tangentially in the direction of rotation of the blower to the cooling ribs. The housing has a blower cover. A combustion air channel is positioned on a pressure side of the blower and connected to the blower cover and the carburetor box, and the internal combustion engine sucks in combustion air through the carburetor box. The channel has an inlet for branching off combustion air from the cooling air flow that is conveyed to the combustion engine. The inlet is in the form of at least one slot within the blower cover. The inlet has at least one deflecting element with a deflecting front surface for guiding the cooling air and a back side. The guide element is positioned such that the back side covers the inlet in a direction of cooling air flow.