Long paths in the project
There are no limitations on the folder structure depth in the data room. But unlike the data room, Windows and macOS restrict actions with long file paths. The longer the names of the folders/subfolders are, and/or the more subfolders you have, the longer the file path is.
💡 A file path is the total file name consisting of the local disk name, root folder name, folder/subfolder names, file name, and file extension. A long path is one that exceeds 260 symbols.
Upon ordering a USB archive, we record your project contents into a password-protected ZIP archive. If a project contains long paths, we automatically truncate them to enable work with the recorded archives on the user's computer.
If you select to truncate long paths, all the changes to document names will be included in the Modified contents report in the archive.
Available truncation options
We automatically detect how long the paths and names will be after exporting to the archive. Truncation options vary depending on how long document names and paths are in your project.
Case 1
The project contains documents with paths longer than 200 symbols but shorter than 950 symbols.
In such a case, we offer to truncate long paths to 200 symbols if you plan to work with the archive on any other opening system or version than Windows 10+ or macOS.
Case 2
The project contains:
Documents with paths longer than 200 symbols but shorter than 950 symbols.
Documents with names longer than 255 symbols.
In this case, we offer the following truncation options:
Windows 10+ or macOS: truncate long document names only. Documents with names over 255 symbols will be shortened. The project folder structure remains the same.
Any OS or version: truncate document paths that are over 200 symbols. Affects both folders and files names.
Case 3
The project contains:
Documents with paths longer than 950 symbols.
Documents with names longer than 255 symbols.
Depending on the target OS, select how to proceed:
Windows 10+ or macOS: truncate long paths to 950 symbols. Document names exceeding 255 symbols are shortened accordingly.
Any OS or version: truncate long paths to 200 symbols.
Case 4
The project contains documents with paths longer than 950 symbols.
Depending on the target OS, select how to proceed:
Windows 10+ or macOS: truncate long paths to 950 symbols.
Any OS or version: truncate long paths to 200 symbols.
Truncation logic
Let’s go through the truncation mechanism on the example of case 1: truncating document paths to 200 symbols.
The system shortens document paths to 200 symbols to also reserve some space for local directory paths. Long paths are eliminated in the following steps:
File names are shortened to at least 21 symbols, excluding index and extension. The system calculates how many symbols should be truncated, but always leaving minimum the first 10 and last 10 symbols. The truncated middle part is replaced with an underscore.
Original name:
1.2.4 Example of very long file name.xlsxModified name:
1.2.4 Example of_ file name.xlsx
Folder names are shortened to at least 21 symbols, same as file names.
The system starts the truncation from the deepest folder and moves to the top of the folder structure until a long path is eliminated.If there are still files with long paths after steps 1 and 2, these files are moved to the "Files with long paths" folder.
Files, folders, and Q&A attachments that are moved to the “Files with long paths” folder from the recycle bin get the prefix “RB_” to the names.
Original name:
1.2.4 Example of very long file name.xlsxModified name:
1.2.4 RB_Example of_ file name.xlsx
Edge cases
In some rare cases with extremely deep folder structure or similar files names, we apply additional changes.
If there are documents with identical names on the same level after truncation, we add the number at the end of their names.
Original names:
Example of very long file name.xlsx,Example of very very long file name.xlsxModified names:
Example of_ file name-1.xlsx,Example of_ file name-2.xlsx
If there are paths with more than 200 characters in the “Files with long paths” folder, we will check if removing 21 symbols from the file name eliminates the long path:
If yes → we remove 21 symbols and keep index and extension.
If no → we cut off the index completely and keep only 21 symbols of the name and the extension.