Sharepoint file path length - encoded or decoded?

Question

I'm trying to understand how to calculate the path length of a file in SharePoint. I know that the limit is 400 characters. However, I'm unclear on what counts toward that total, and whether characters are counted encoded or decoded.

For example:

If the URL was https://company.sharepoint.com/FolderName/MyFile.doc (not a real SharePoint URL format, I know), would that be counted as 52 characters (the number of characters in the example above)?

OR: would it be counted as 62 characters (the number of chars in the URL https%3A%2F%2Fcompany.sharepoint.com%2FFolderName%2FMyFile.doc where special characters have been URL encoded)?

I've been googling this for days and just keep finding conflicting information. Can somebody give a definitive answer? TIA.

Answer 1

Hi @Rick Lecoat,

Thank you for posting in this community.

According to Microsoft's official documentation, the path length of a file is calculated based on decoding.

For more information on file path lengths, see Part File name and path lengths of this article: Restrictions and limitations in OneDrive and SharePoint.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.