diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index 874977d..87a6a57 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -30,6 +30,13 @@ Install
     # local development, with uv
     uv sync
 
+To read or write TOML front matter, install the optional dependency::
+
+    pip install 'python-frontmatter[toml]'
+
+Without it, parsing a document with TOML delimiters emits a warning and leaves
+the document as content, without extracting its metadata.
+
 Usage
 ------
 
@@ -152,4 +159,3 @@ Indices and tables
 * :ref:`genindex`
 * :ref:`modindex`
 * :ref:`search`
-
diff --git a/frontmatter/__init__.py b/frontmatter/__init__.py
index 04f4029..e7e9842 100644
--- a/frontmatter/__init__.py
+++ b/frontmatter/__init__.py
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
 
 import io
 import pathlib
+import re
+import warnings
 from os import PathLike
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Iterable, TextIO
 
@@ -80,6 +82,13 @@ def parse(
     # this will only run if a handler hasn't been set higher up
     handler = handler or detect_format(text, handlers)
     if handler is None:
+        if TOMLHandler is None and re.match(r"^\+{3,}\s*$", text, re.MULTILINE):
+            warnings.warn(
+                "TOML front matter detected, but TOML support is not installed. "
+                "Install 'python-frontmatter[toml]' to parse it.",
+                UserWarning,
+                stacklevel=2,
+            )
         return metadata, text
 
     # split on the delimiters
diff --git a/tests/test_missing_toml.py b/tests/test_missing_toml.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..841ce44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_missing_toml.py
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+"""Exercise optional TOML support in an interpreter without the dependency."""
+
+import subprocess
+import sys
+import textwrap
+
+
+def test_missing_toml_warning():
+    result = subprocess.run(
+        [sys.executable, "-c", textwrap.dedent('''
+            import sys
+            import warnings
+            sys.modules["toml"] = None
+            import frontmatter
+
+            text = '+++\\ntitle = "Hello"\\n+++\\nBody'
+            with warnings.catch_warnings(record=True) as caught:
+                warnings.simplefilter("always")
+                post = frontmatter.loads(text)
+            assert len(caught) == 1
+            assert "python-frontmatter[toml]" in str(caught[0].message)
+            assert post.content == text
+            assert post.metadata == {}
+
+            with warnings.catch_warnings(record=True) as caught:
+                warnings.simplefilter("always")
+                assert frontmatter.loads('---\\ntitle: Hello\\n---\\nBody')["title"] == "Hello"
+                assert frontmatter.loads('Body\\n+++').content == 'Body\\n+++'
+                assert frontmatter.loads('++++ text').content == '++++ text'
+            assert not caught
+        ''')],
+        capture_output=True,
+        text=True,
+    )
+    assert result.returncode == 0, result.stderr