Understanding file path errors and solving them with long path tool

Understanding file path errors and solving them with long path tool

While manipulating files in your computer you might come across several errors. In most cases, the errors in manipulating files arise because of the long path of files i.e. large number of characters in the files path.

What is a file path?

Path is the address that indicates the location of the file along with the name of the file. For example, if an executable file named ABC is stored in the folder XYZ of C drive then the entire path of the file would be its location along with the file name ABC and its extension. Therefore, the path for it will be C:\XYZ\ABC.exe.

When does the problem of long paths arise?

People often do not understand why problems of long path arise. The main reason behind arising of long path problem is the length of file paths exceeding 255 characters. Therefore, if a file has got a huge name or is stored inside a sub-folder which is a sub-folder of many other sub-folders in a particular drive, then the problem may arise as its character count may exceed 255. Just for example, in the above example of a path i.e. C:\XYZ\ABC.exe the number of characters is 14.

What kinds of problem occur due to long path errors?

Knowing what a long path is or what long path error is would be of no good to a system user if he cannot understand what the symptoms are for long path errors. Due to long path errors you will face various problems related to manipulation of a file. Manipulation of a file means copying, renaming, deleting, etc of files. While you try to perform any of these file manipulation works you come across some kind of error and you are stopped from getting successful results.

What kind of error messages appear due to long path problems?

Generally, when a long path error occurs you are stopped from copying, deleting, renaming, moving or opening a file. The error messages indicate that the file you tried to access might be full, being used by some other application or might be write protected. In such a situation long path tool may come to your help.

How long path tool helps?

Now that you have known the symptoms of long path problems, you would be able to overcome such problems by downloading and installing the long path tool from longpathtool.com for free. After installing the software you can manipulate any file with path up to character count of 32,000.

Download Long Path Tool — Version 5.1.6