SharePoint: Windows File Path Limit

Hi,

I have been doing some analysis of a large amount of data migrating from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 365, and have had thousands of exceptions based on file paths being too long.

I've analysed a couple of random cases of files that copied successfully, and in one case there were so many folders in folders, and the file name was long, that the total number of characters in the URL was 367 if spaces are %20, and 243 if not.

I read somewhere that the total allowed characters was 400, however I've had a number of cases where file transfers have failed and the total characters in the file path was much less than that.  I just can't seem to get a solid answer and it's driving me nuts!!

Any help appreciated

Dave

Hi Dave,

As per my enquiry with Microsoft they confirmed if we purely use SharePoint online via browser then the character limit is 400, whereas when we sync the folders to one-drive then window file path limit is applied of 218 characters, that is also very tricky because each space is equal to 3 characters as its encoded to %20 so at the end of the day its very tedious to know what is the actual file path length.

Another issue you will face is when saving a file using 'Save as' , please notice it will save in file path directory something like this https://domain-name.sharepoint.sharepoint.com/sites/DocumentCenter/Shared Documents/ now these characters are also being used in 218 character limit which further reduces down your character limit.

Regards,

Adnan.

URLs have a 256 character limit which you have found will affect your SharePoint documents.

And using spaces is never a good idea because of it being replace with 3 characters of %20. But other than that spaces is the only thing to watch out for an folders.

Folders will be included in URL.

As a SharePoint administrator when creating libraries in SharePoint use acronyms. You can always change the title of the library after without affecting the URL.

Also be very careful using folders in folders. Especially if you break inheritance and do explicit permissions. This will cause slowness in the library and can break search capabilities.

Let me know if you have anymore questions with SharePoint... i have been using it for over 12 years :)

Hi,

I have been doing some analysis of a large amount of data migrating from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 365, and have had thousands of exceptions based on file paths being too long.

I've analysed a couple of random cases of files that copied successfully, and in one case there were so many folders in folders, and the file name was long, that the total number of characters in the URL was 367 if spaces are %20, and 243 if not.

I read somewhere that the total allowed characters was 400, however I've had a number of cases where file transfers have failed and the total characters in the file path was much less than that.  I just can't seem to get a solid answer and it's driving me nuts!!

Any help appreciated

Dave

URLs have a 256 character limit which you have found will affect your SharePoint documents.

And using spaces is never a good idea because of it being replace with 3 characters of %20. But other than that spaces is the only thing to watch out for an folders.

Folders will be included in URL.

As a SharePoint administrator when creating libraries in SharePoint use acronyms. You can always change the title of the library after without affecting the URL.

Also be very careful using folders in folders. Especially if you break inheritance and do explicit permissions. This will cause slowness in the library and can break search capabilities.

Let me know if you have anymore questions with SharePoint... i have been using it for over 12 years :)

Hi Sarah,

thanks for the reply, changing the title of library helps to reduce the file path length? The slowness you mentioned also is experience when using one-drive?