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TestSPOL - Create Test Folders &
Files for SharePoint Online, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and OneDrive |
from the author of SharePrep and DelinvFile
TestSPOL is a special-purpose utility program for assisting our customers in determining the actual limitations for Path, Folder, and File name lengths for their systems to use for SharePoint Online, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Onedrive.
A major obstacle for users of the various iterations of SharePoint and OneDrive is determining the user's length limitations for file, folder and path names.
Available literature is not all that helpful. One
can find a range of values such as:
File names can have up to 128 - 256 characters
Folder names can have up to 128 - 256 characters
Folder name/file name combinations can have up to 250 - 260 characters.
The literature is lacking in any reasonable explanations as to where or how the lengths are computed and imposed.
I undertook the task of researching these limitations so as to provide useful recommendations to my SharePrep customers.
After working some with OneDrive, I signed up for the Office 365 Trial subscription as it included OneDrive for Business and its access to SharePoint Online.
After the typical startup difficulties, it soon became apparent that I was on a futile quest. I learned that the Microsoft approach of allowing users to create files that they could not delete with Windows Explorer carried over into the SharePoint and OneDrive products.
For OneDrive, in particular, one could upload folders/files on one system that would not Sync to a different system. Seemed to be dependent on the length of the login names. You could Sync the files to the system with the shorter login name but not visa versa.
For OneDrive for Business, one could manually upload longer names than you could Sync. Similar to OneDrive, the length of the login names of different systems causes Sync problems.
I was slow to realize that there are no clear-cut standards for the name lengths. The practical lengths depended on where the files were stored and how they were used. For the OneDrive and OneDrive for Business, the local Sync folder has to be counted against the total. Further, Windows Explorer may display OneDrive for Business but the actual name may be " "C:/users/loginname/OneDrive for Business".
Storage in the cloud requires that the actual URL length be included in determining the total length.
I decided that a better approach would be to clean up my file creation program and make it available to my SharePrep customers. This provides a convenient means for creating test folders and files of various lengths so you can perform your own determination as to practical name lengths. You can download TestSPOL below.
If you are having Sync problems or if you are seeing any of the following messages, TestSPOL should prove useful...
| Error 0x8007007A: The data area passed to a system call is too small. |
| The specified file or folder name is too long. The URL path for all files and folders must be 260 characters or less... |
| The URL for this file is too long for the application. A temporary copy of this file will be opened on your computer. You must save this copy as a new file. |
| A file or folder can't be created because the path is too long. |
| ...path to a file is too long... |