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Error message: "Destination Path Too Long"


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Hi, I use Windows 7 Professional 64-bitand an HP Pavilion desktop. When I try to copy html docs that I saved from my C:/ hard drive to another hard drive, I almost always get the following error 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 that has a shorter path."

There are 250 or so files that are too long, and to shorten each one would take too long.

This occurs no matter the name brand of the hard drive (Iomega, Hitachi) and no matter if it is an internal or portable hard drive. It only has copied all the files successfully three or four times, including one when I reformatted the drive. 99.5% of the time I get the error message though.

All hard drives are NFTS and have no partitions.

Does anyone have any solutions? I can't do a complete backup otherwise. Thanks!

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Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a 260 character limit.

Path+Filename limit is 260 characters.

Exceeding either will result in the error mentioned.

The only solution I am aware of is to simplify the folder structure or file names.

Are these html files saved as .html ? Can you save them as .mht instead ?

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Thanks Boris! They are either mhtml files if I saved them in Internet Explorer or Opera, or firefox html files if saved in Firefox. A few are also .aspx files. They are basically news articles or websites I saved off the Internet, and some discussion forums advice too. Is there an advantage to changing them to .mht?

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If some are already saved as mhtml, then no.

My suggestion would be to shorten any paths if possible. e.g. move them to your desktop rather than down the longer path where they currently are ?

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Well, I just tried moving the documents folder in the library to the desktop via drag and drop, and all it did was create a shortcut. And if I copy the files in "Documents" and try to paste them to the desktop, I assume a lot of them won't copy because of the aforementioned character limit.

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Thanks. But when I right-click, there isn't an option to "move", only copy and "Send to > desktop (create shortcut)".

I assume if I create a shortcut, that will just send me to the original Documents folder in the Library, and I will still have trouble copying all of the files onto another hard drive??? The same with "copy".

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