Long file paths... solutions?

[gshaw]

While migrating our admin shared areas into a single shared drive I had a lightbulb moment and thought best to check the depth \ length of some of the folder and file names being used by staff... turns out I was in for a shock!

 

There's some huge names that are going over the (stupid and arcane) Windows file path limit of 255 characters, found them by using this rather nifty Powershell command...

 

cmd /c "dir \\?\E:\\ /s/b" | ? {$_.length -gt 254}

 

The only solution in the meantime is to take the output of said nifty command and get staff to rename the offending directories and files, although I can still open them in Windows as far as I can see so far...

 

I do love the post in this thread on Technet forums about it (search for "Why use one word where two will do" within the page!)

 

File name too long cannot copy

[Oaktech]

try this: Path Too Long | Filename too long | Filename is too long | Path too long utility or unstoppable copy

[gshaw]

Thanks for the link, looks to be a nicer version of a similar tool I saw on Google trailing earlier on

 

Nice bit of tech background on why we've still got a 16-year old issue with Windows 7... some things never change!!!

 

Explorer still limited by MAX_PATH

 

Robocopy didn't seem to care about copying the files, everything went over OK but in the long run I've got to stop people being so verbose with folder names

[Jollity]

A good way of dealing with a single long path, without needing any extra tools, is to mount a directory somewhere along the path as a virtual drive with subst. This can the shorten the path below the limit.

For example:

subst X: C:\myreallylongpath\

del X:\therestofmyreallylongpath.txt

 

I think you can also use a special prefix "\\?\" on paths on the command line to get around the limit. For example:

del "\\?\C:\myreallylongpath\therestofmyreallylongpath.txt"

 

Bonus weirdness: a dot at the end of a file name will make it undeletable through explorer.

[Jollity]

the best part is that the program's for free!

Though "use" does not include deleting or renaming files. You have to pay $69 for the full version to do that.