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Does Robocopy copy files that have more then 256 characters in the file path or file name.

I am seeing some conflicted info on this online and wondering if it does.

I can copy the file to the same location on another drive so from E:\FILEPATH to F:\FILEPATH but then the file becomes un-usable (I get a error from windows explorer telling me the path or filename too long). How do I fix something like this AFTER the copy.

If not, what can we do to get around this problem where we robocopy directory/files where some of it too long without renaming/removing it.

We are doing this all through using a robocopy .bat script at the moment.

5 Spice ups
2

If you’re on earlier versions of Windows, you have a 260 character (including termination character) limit for the path\filename specification.

On Windows 10, a registry change can allow long path\filename usage.

Compatibility becomes an issue. Unfortunately, you can create this situation by creating subfolders manually, but getting out of it requires shortening the path and or filenames manually as well.

Been there. Not fun.

3 Spice ups
3

Robocopy supports long file names by default. If you wanted to turn that off, you could use the /256 switch to limit characters.

You’ll still be limited by whatever your OS supports, though.

2 Spice ups
4

I’m leaning heavily toward what the Big Green dude above said, use the /256 switch - make sure you use logging when you’re copying, then you can parse out the files that were NOT copied because their path/name is too long. Most of the time the file name happens to be a bookmark from what I’ve found over the years - if the path itself is making it exceed the 255 characters, then some housekeeping needs to be done - another reason to parse out the files not copied because the path/name is too long. And, unfortunately, I cannot find a way to fix it after the fact.

@big-green-man

5

I been testing around to see what methods I could do to get around this.

1 - rename files/folder path.

2 - Mapped the path to a network drive letter (to access the file).

I also read that windows released some patches suppose to fix this but I couldn’t get it to work (at least with my own office PC).