32,767: the real Windows file path limit
top of page

32,767: the real Windows file path limit

The Litigation Support Tip of the Night for March 13, 2017 discussed how to get around the 255 limit for file paths in Windows Explorer in the Windows 10 operating system. The actual NTFS file system used by Windows actually has a far longer file path limit of 32,767 characters. See this post to the Microsoft Windows Developer site on Maximum Path Length Limitation., which confirms this is the limit. The reason why is that this is highest number that can be used for a 16-bit application written for early versions of Windows.



bottom of page