These house a huge number of these elements that we are talking about, as well as belonging to all types of environments, programs or modes of use. Therefore, to avoid possible problems in the future, let’s see how to deactivate the limit that we have told you about.
Turn off the 260 character path limit
The official way to activate this feature in the operating system is from local group policies. However, this panel is only available for Windows 10/11 Pro users. If we are users of the Home edition, we must go directly to the second point, to do it from the registry.
With everything and with this, as we told you, below, we will also give you some solutions for the more domestic editions of Windows and thus be able to solve this problem with the folders. And it is that we must take into account that the Home edition of the Microsoft operating system is the most common and used by the majority of users. The more professional editions have more specific functions for advanced users like this one that we are telling you about in the group policies that focus on professional uses of the operating system.
It should be noted that the use of this section of the local group directives generally refers to professional functions. A good part of these are available to system administrators who manage several computers in one local network. With everything and with this if you have the Home version of Windows, as we will discuss later we will show you a solution for this error.
We must also take into account that modifying parameters in this section of the operating system without knowing very well what we are doing is not recommended. If we change any configuration that we shouldn’t, all this can negatively affect the operation of Windows, even endangering its security. And this section refers to most of the functions and tools built into the operating system itself.
The first thing we will do is execute «gpedit.msc» in the Windows search bar (or in the window that appears when you press Windows + R) in order to open this Windows policy panel. We only have to type the aforementioned command in one of these two sections.
Once we see the new window of this editor, we must move to the following section: Local computer policy > Computer configuration > Administrative templates > System > File system. This is something we achieve through the dropdown lists that appear on the left side of the interface.
We double click on the entry «Enable long Win32 paths» to open it. And, once we see its configuration window, we must mark the “Enabled” option within it. Therefore, as we can see, the changes here are very easy to carry out in the professional editions of Windows.
We apply the changes and restart the computer. When Windows boots again, the 260 character limit path will be gone. Now we can start using much longer paths and file names. As we can see, this is a process that we can carry out in a few seconds and that does not require any advanced knowledge of Windows. Of course, as we mentioned before, this is a method that is only valid for those who have a professional edition of Windows.
In the event that you have the Home edition of the operating system, which is the most common, we will always have the possibility of solving this problem that we are discussing, with the methods that come below. For example, using the popular Windows registry editor.
Enable it from the registry in Home editions
Likewise, we may not be able to use the group policy editor, or we may not like working with it as it is an advanced tool designed for system administrators. Therefore, Microsoft offers us the possibility to enable this feature also from the registry.
Of course, we must take into account that this is a rather delicate section of the Microsoft operating system, therefore, before touching anything in the Windows registry, we recommend you make a backup copy of it that will be saved in a file through the File menu > Export. That gives us the possibility of restoring it in the event that we have a problem once the changes have been made in this registry.
In this case, we would only have to import the file created in the backup to restore the registry as we had it before making the changes that we will show you below. This is a very efficient security system and almost necessary every time we are going to touch the Windows registry.
To do this, what we must do is run “regedit.exe” from the Windows search bar, or from the Win+R window, and navigate to the following directory:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > FileSystem
Here we must look for the value “LongPathsEnabled”. In case it does not exist, we will have to create it as a new 32-bit DWORD value. When we have done so, we will assign the LongPathsEnabled value “1” and click OK to apply the changes to the system.
We close the registry, restart the computer and that’s it. From now on, the 260 character restriction will be gone. As we have seen, this is also a fairly simple system to carry out. Of course, when editing the registry we must be very careful with the changes we make here. And it is that a failure in this section can negatively affect Windows causing problems in its operation. To cure ourselves in health, a more than recommended measure is, before changing anything, to make a backup copy of the entire registry. This is something we achieve in seconds by accessing the File / Export menu option in the editor itself.
Later, if when making changes in this section, they do not have the expected result, or we begin to notice strange behavior in Windows, we can restore that backup copy again. if we want restore copy that we had previously made the Windows registry before making the modification, we went to the File menu, clicked on Import and selected the file that we had previously exported.
Use a program to bypass this restriction
What we have seen so far focuses on solving the 260 character problem when creating folders in the operating system, all through functions built into Windows. But in the event that we do not want to complicate our lives by accessing these delicate sections of the system itself, we can use simpler and more affordable methods for inexperienced users. This is something that we can also carry out through programs developed by third parties and that offer us a Graphic interface easier to use to make this change that we are talking about.
Therefore, another possibility to obtain a path of more than 260 characters is to use a program developed by third parties, such as the ones we show you below:
Long Path Fixer
In case you are experiencing this problem, and you cannot (or do not want to) activate this function in Windows, there is an alternative that, although with certain limitations, will allow us to work with long directories: Long Path Fixer. This software is completely free, it is a program that allows us to “reach” files and folders that Windows Explorer refuses to reach, that is, any name with a path longer than what the Windows API can handle (MAX_PATH : 260 characters).
When we use , what it does is redirect directories that are too long so that we can easily access their content. This program allows us to work with directories of up to 32,767 characters, so we probably won’t ever have any problem accessing the files stored on the hard drive.
Long Path Fixer presents us with a simple list of files and folders in the current directory (including “hidden” files and folders). We can drag and drop files or folders on it and navigate directly to the path where we have dropped it. From there, we simply have to click on the file or folder that you want to move, copy, delete and press the corresponding button. All these options are also available from the context menu (right click), as well as rename, Delete to recycle bin, copy path, etc.
The problem with this program is that it only allows us to work with one directory at a time. And from its simple interface. It does not allow us, for example, to browse these directories from the file explorer. We will have to locate the long directory in the program, access the data and choose if we want to delete the files, or copy them to a shorter directory.
The best
This is a useful application that offers us an intuitive user interface that prevents us from touching delicate Windows elements to make this change. Its main function is focused on eliminating the restriction for the folders that we have mentioned. In this way and in a simple way we will have the possibility of managing thousands of characters in the same folder, something that could be useful on certain occasions and even on servers. The program also allows us to work with hidden files and folders.
Worst
These changes to eliminate the limitation that Windows imposes on us, sometimes we will have to make them on a large number of folders stored on the disk. However, it must be taken into account that this is an application that only allows us to eliminate that limit with a single folder individually at a time.
Long Path Tool
This is a long path file troubleshooter for Windows and macOS. With its use we will be able to delete, copy and change the name in a massive way in files with a long path. If we cannot access or delete a file with a long path (more than 255 characters), this application will help us correct this type of error, among which we can find such as “Path too long”, “Source path too long”, “Destination path too long”, among others.
Long Patch Tool is compatible with any version of Windows, macOS and Linux. It has a free version that we can download. Its main drawback is that in order to use all its functions we must buy its license, which costs $44.70 for personal use.
Pros
Here we find an application that is responsible for eliminating the limitations with folders that we mentioned for both Windows-based computers and Apple macOS. We have the possibility of filtering on different types of folders in order to speed up the process and achieve what we are looking for more quickly.
cons
Contrary to what happened with the previously mentioned program for these same tasks, this is a software solution for which we will have to pay if we want to take advantage of all the functions that it offers us to eliminate the limitation with the…
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