Enable long file paths (aka "File Name Too Long" problem when syncing)
As a developer, I have deeply nested file structures with sometimes arduously long file names. I am unable to use OneDrive as it stands now because of this. I would like to suggest that this limitation be removed. I understand that it's probably a fundamental infrastructure issue but it's severely hampering Onedrive when compared to other competitors out there right now, despite all the other cool features.
Brian Hall
shared this idea
We’ve enabled significantly longer paths for your personal OneDrive in our latest Windows and Mac releases (available from http://onedrive.com/download). You should be able to use paths up to 430 characters from the root of your local OneDrive sync folder. Our telemetry tells us this covers the vast majority of customers who have hit max path issues in the past. Note that if you have over 90 characters in your local OneDrive path (that is, from drive letter to OneDrive\) you will see characters over 90 cut into the budget of 430 characters (93 character local path will mean 427 characters available for path in the OneDrive folder).
1043 comments
-
OJS
commented
I am uncertain if you are aware of have turn on long filename support on your windows 10 workstations. For Home Versions this is done via registry and for Pro and enterprise versions this is done via gpedit.
for Home, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and right click on Longpathsenabled and change the value from 0 to 1 and click ok, reboot your system
For Pro and enterprise versions run gpedit.msc and navigate to Computer configuration > Administrative Templates>System>File System. Double Click on Enable win32 Long paths and Enable it then click OK. Close GPedit.msc and run gpupdate /f
hopefully this will fix the problem
-
Phil Detweiler
commented
This is practically unusable as it is now. Working with a user who has 30 years of important files, all nicely organized, but she isn't very impressed with the disruption this is causing. The few times she may want to share a file or use some other feature does not make up for the fact that the fundamental purpose of this (to replace a local network share) is not met. This is WORK!!, we're not sending out tweets or posting pics of our kids for god's sake... this is business, sometimes businesses have folders and files that have long paths... how can this not have been known?
-
Judith
commented
This is so annoying... I can't open half of my files because of this issue... Each time I want to modify a file I have to make a copy of it in my hard disk drive, rename it (which I hate because I need to identify each file properly) and then deleting the old file to finally move the new file to One Drive.
I hope they fix this soon :( -
Anonymous
commented
Because there are two users on my home desk top, one drive keeps telling me that the filenames are too long. So, while I can use onedrive on my other devices, it won't sync on my desk top. This makes it a useless tool. I don't understand why this is a limitation.
-
Anonymous
commented
STILL VERY LIMITIED FIE NAME LENGTH FOR COMMERICAL ONEDRIVE WHERE ITS MOST NEEDED! WHEN IS THAT GOING TO CHANGE?
-
Anonymous
commented
Problem is that with double click tehre shoul be some error message in Onedrive to tell the user, that he has only *** charchters left. This is not the case with PDF documents
-
Anonymous
commented
Doesn't work
-
Donald Wihardja
commented
Yup, I absolutely agree this is frustrating.
I recently moved to onedrive from dropbox and didn't quite understand why this move wasn't smooth... some frustration later (and with my drive in total sync disarray) I just realize that some file just REFUSE to transfer because of long filename... or it breaks the sync.
well, I guess 1TB of disk space is just too good without some caveat... maybe I have to pay dropbox afterall...
-
Cecil.
commented
This is insanely frustrating.
We need to have very descriptive folder names to keep track of work and it easily gets to be quite long.
However the issue is 100% The sync of onedrive to the local disk thats STUPID.With company name and other junk being added onto the url the longest file path we can make is 196 Characters!!!!
And don't even get me started on Excel, because excel has to be "special" it reserves a lot of characters for references to workbooks and other stupid things that shouldn't be an issue for the user to deal with. This further reduces the options.
How is this "for business" when it absolutely kills productivity?!
how hard is it to change the url to a short url so we can use the basic 255 characters AT LEAST?!
-
Anonymous
commented
Is this still being 'thought about'? The original post was raised over 6 years ago. It is causing us a real headache as we roll out Teams to access sharepoint for file management.
We have been telling users they can synch and use File Explorer for file access. During 'synch' the process adds a number of characters relating to users, domain, Team and channel. This is variable depending on user name but may use up to 100 characters. That leaves c. 150 characters for path and filename for migration from our file server. This single issue has caused more angst in relation to its resolution than any other.
Microsoft.If this is really such a hard nut to ***** (File Explorer vs Windows API limitation) - 6 years is a long time with no resolution path published - then why don't you improve the rather clunky file management capability of the Teams App by making that look and behave more like explorer & provide an 'offline' synch capability within it?
-
Greg
commented
I think "Boom! It's Done" has mis-understood the problem. Yes, OneDrive on the web can now hold paths of 400 characters. But the synchronisation to and from the C:\ drive is still limited to 260 chars. So if you have a folder on your C: drive that exceeds 260 chars, it DOES NOT synchronsie to the web. You can only access the 400 char limit if you never synchronise, and only access your data through a browser.
It kind of negates the benefits of the 400 character One-Drive limit, since many people prefer to synchronise and have the rich functionality of their File Explorer, rather than use the clumsy browser-only options.
To the people advocating "Long Path Tool" - yes, there are tools that allow you to access and delete longer paths on your C: drive - but why can't Microsoft just make OneDrive synchronisation work, without having to faff about with folder lengths? It is as though the people who have created the synchronsiation functionality have not spoken with the people who have implemented the OneDrive file length limit.
Come on Microsoft - why not get this sorted once and for all? Fix it so that you can synchronise paths on your C: drive up to the 400 character limit.
-
User
commented
Been dealing with Onedrive issues the past 6 months. This is the biggest issue.
yes you have allowed longer path names in the WEBVERSION. howabout when it syncs to a local machine like WINDOWS 10 where there is a limit of 256 characters in the filepathname.No longpathtool will not solve this issue as we don't need to rename copy or move files. The underlying issue it is the year 2020 this issue needs to be resolved to allow longer file paths with synced to a windows 10 local installation.
This is incredible frustrating to explain to a customer no sorry this is a limitation of Microsoft that hasn't allowed any more than 256 characters in a filepathname. At least I can say it's not you or me it's Microsoft. So thank you for being the one to be able to blame when this issue can't be fixed.
-
Anonymous
commented
we migrated all our data to sharepoint and now we have issues opening files as path is too long.
Please fix this issue urgently
-
Anonymous
commented
This is one of the worst thing of onedrive.
Why the path length is limiting to 256.All my users are complaining. Thinking of moving from one drive to a onprem NAS device where we don't face such issues
-
Geeves
commented
This is still an issue here, especially with COVID and more and more people needing to work remotely, to have the first 50 or so characters being the "share name" (what used to be something like S:\) causing quite a few issues with clients syncing SharePoint. (when the sync client actually works haha)
Would be great to have this on the 400+ character limit and maybe, just maybe all will be right with the world... -
Taylor
commented
This is literally an outrage. Halfway through migrating our entire company to OneDrive and O365 architecture, and this? File path name limits? In 2020? EVERY SINGLE NESTED FOLDER WE HAVE IS TOO LONG.
-
Anonymous
commented
Use LongPathTool it will solve your problem of deleting and copying long path files
-
Caitlin Boake
commented
SharePoint files synced with OneDrive still experience "path too long" issues. Please address this
-
Gerald Brickson
commented
Exactly, I came to face this issue also. Then some recommended me Long Path Tool software and I am grateful to that person
-
Anonymous
commented
the same issue, it is not solved with newer version of onedrive, the file show up on sync folder but just couldn't open it, i have to rename it online to open it in sync folder. this is not what we expected.
is there a way to shorten the file path and still refer to the correct URL?
