Hey everyone! I've been digging around about the path limit in Windows File Explorer and its interaction with OneDrive synced folders. My organization is switching from Windows File Servers to SharePoint Online, and some folks are really attached to the 'Add Shortcut to OneDrive' feature so they can keep using Windows File Explorer. I'm trying to help them transition, but a specific issue has come up during testing.
I'm curious about the 255/260-character path limit that File Explorer seems to enforce. I've done some registry tweaks (enabling LONGPATHSENABLED) that theoretically should lift this limitation, but ironically, it only seems to work for mapped network drives. I'm puzzled as to why a local file or a file in a synced OneDrive folder, which exceeds 260 characters, can't be opened, while mapped drives allow for much longer paths. For instance, I even mapped a drive letter to my OneDrive sync folder using \\localhost, and that worked too, but I won't use that method because it doesn't present files in a cloud-friendly way. Ultimately, I know restructuring data into smaller libraries is the best long-term fix, but I'm really interested in understanding how the SMB protocol manages to bypass this path limit.—Thanks in advance!
1 Answer
I checked out the documentation on Windows path limitations, and while it lays out the max path issues, it doesn't explain why mapped drives can work fine. But I think it has to do with UNC paths bypassing the limit if you're using the prefix "\?". This could explain the behavior you're seeing.
Thanks, that’s helpful! I remember seeing a hint about UNC paths being exempt. Makes me understand it better!