File name too long for destination folder

Hi Derrick,

Thank you for your reply. I dont quite understand your paragraph "The common understanding is: if your file name is 123456789012345678901234567890, the folder name of each layer is D:\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS\ ...... If these characters add up to 280 and the Windows system limit is 256 characters, an error message will appear "The file name may be too long for the destination folder. You can shorten the file name and try again, or try a shorter path"." I am not sure how the file named "12345....." can read as "ABCDE..." as I am no techie.

May I clarify that point by trying to explain what I got from your answer in my own words? If my parent folder is named "Bobbys growing up" and the subfolders within, each containing jpeg files are named "1st birthday", "2nd birthday".....

Then the folder name of each layer will be D:\Bobbys growing up\1st birthday ( each of these is called a path)

                                                                D:\ Bobbys growing up\2nd birthday 

So the longer the parent folder name the shorter the subfolder names can be. Am I correct in that regard?

Hi

Welcome to Microsoft community.

I'm glad to help you.

The fundamental reason is that the number of characters of your file name and your folder layers exceeds the limit of Windows system.

The common understanding is: if your file name is 123456789012345678901234567890, the folder name of each layer is D:\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW\ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS\ ...... If these characters add up to 280 and the Windows system limit is 256 characters, an error message will appear "The file name may be too long for the destination folder. You can shorten the file name and try again, or try a shorter path".

The solution is to change the file name, or change the path. Change the first level path name of each folder to a shorter character.

Or you can make a zip file of the files you need to transfer.

If you need more help, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

You can also get rid of the MAXPATH 256 issue.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=registry also see

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-isnt-long-paths-enabled-by-default-in-windows/0dd550ca-6025-4ecb-9152-fc0f570d9620

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

If the number of characters in the names of all files and subfolders in a folder exceeds 256, a move error will occur.

If you modify the group policy and registry, it has no effect. You can only solve this problem by shortening the file name and subfolder name, or even the length of the parent folder name.

Another way is to compress the files you need to transfer into compressed files, which should also be copied and moved.