The file name(s) would be too long for the destination folder

I am getting this message:

"The file name(s) would be too long for the destination folder. You can shorten the file name and try again or try a location with a shorter path."

when moving files from one external hard drive to another, using the same exact path for folders and files. I'm on Windows 10 64bit.

I do understand this error message and the character limit of 256, what I do not understand is how can one hard drive allow such long file path while the other doesn't. They both have a NTFS file system.

The one that is giving me this error message is a new external hard drive that I'm trying to fill with the content of the old one.

Is there more than one NTFS file system type and the new one maybe has an incorrect one that doesn't allow a character limit for folders as long as the older one? Should have I re-formatted the new hard drive before starting to use it?

 

Some possible explanations:
- those files were initially saved, on the first HDD, via an application (such as Adobe PDF Reader) which lets you save files in a long path.
- that HDD was probably mounted as a network drive with a shorter path to the files you are trying to copy.

 

Neither of the two were the case, but thanks for your insight.

 

How were the original files created? Did you format the new drive and if you did was the problem resolved?

 

The files on the older hard drive were collected over the years.
I didn't format the new drive, the problem is not solved. It's actually not a huge problem, I can shorten the file path.

I was just curious to understand how the length of a same exact file path is okay for a drive but too long for the other. I was wondering if somehow the NTFS file system on the new drive is different from the old one, and whether I should have re-formatted it with a proper file system if the one in use was inadequate.

 

I have seen that a lot on Win10x64 they are website screenshots of stuff i bought a few years ago i was trying to copy from an external hdd to my internal hdd.

It`s a pain, either re-name the file/directory if you can, if it`s a directory copy the files out, sometimes you cannot delete it, I use a free app called FilExile to delete files or directory`s that are causing my problems, if they still do not delete turn off safe mode in the preferences for FilExile.

Watch for bloatware( unwanted apps) when installing if it has any, untick them.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/filexile/

John.

 

I've seen this a bunch too. Normally it's only on a few files/folders so I just rename them before I copy. The hard part is figuring out the few files that had the issue out of a few 100k files.

 

I have a long running issue with this since the Windows O/S removed this naming format. This is something one can't change or fix as it is something hard written into the O/S itself. Your best option is to use a free zip tool like 7zip and compress that folder or file into a zip file that can then be moved and unzip at the new destination to be unpacked. This will keep the same name it had before without making any changes to the name. So until Windows itself can be free of this restriction moving long file name will be only done by zipping and moving and unzipping to keep their properties the same. I run into a few of these "file name too long" problem but zipping was the only sure way to keep them intact and move to the right location.

I also have NTFS and regardless long file name still a problem, moving on the same drive I think sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't also moving to a different high capacity HDD sometimes work and sometimes not. I done this and some worked and others didn't.

NTFS isn't the problem it's the O/S itself programming need to be rewritten underneath so that regardless of file name length it can move to another folder on the drive or to another separate drive without problem.

 

Thanks for the new info guys however this problem happened a year ago and it's solved by now