Fix Long Path
and File Errors.

Windows has a built-in limit of 260 characters for any file or folder path. When a path exceeds this limit — often after years of nested folders, long department names, or legacy naming conventions — Windows returns a "path too long" error. Files with paths over the limit cannot be opened, copied, moved, or deleted through normal means. LPFE scans your drives and fixes these paths in bulk.

There are two main approaches: (1) Use Group Policy or the Windows Registry to enable long path support — this requires admin rights and doesn't fix existing oversized paths. (2) Use a dedicated tool like LPFE to scan your drives, identify every oversized path, and rename files and folders in bulk so they fall within the 260-character limit. LPFE is the faster and safer option for most users, with a full live preview before any change is made.

This error appears when you try to copy or move a file and the resulting path at the destination would exceed 260 characters. It commonly happens when copying from a short local path into a deeply nested network share, or when moving files into a folder with a long name. LPFE resolves this by shortening the source paths before you attempt the copy.

On NTFS, the Windows API path limit is 260 characters (MAX_PATH) — this counts the drive letter, every folder name, every backslash, and the terminating null character, leaving 259 usable characters for the path itself. Individual file or folder names within that path are limited to 255 characters each. These limits apply to the full absolute path, so deeply nested folders with long names at every level compound quickly and unexpectedly.

Yes. LPFE scans both local drives and mapped network drives. You can point it at any root folder — including a mapped drive letter — and it will recursively walk every subfolder and file, flagging anything over the 260-character limit. The same rules and preview system applies to network paths.

Yes. The free trial includes all 9 built-in rules and unlimited custom Find/Replace pairs, but is capped at 25 path entries. This lets you evaluate the tool on a real folder before purchasing. LPFE is sold in two SKUs: an Individual license at $49 for personal / non-commercial use, and an Enterprise license at $149 required for business or organizational use. Both are one-time payments — no subscription, no annual renewal, no feature locks — and both unlock the exact same software. The difference is the grant of rights in the EULA.

Choose the Individual license at $49 if you're using LPFE for personal, non-commercial work — your own files, a family archive, a hobby project. Choose the Enterprise license at $149 if you're using LPFE for or on behalf of a business, organization, or government entity — including using it on a work-owned computer, on company file shares, or to organize work data. Both licenses unlock identical functionality; the difference is the grant of rights in the EULA, and LPFE does not police your selection in software. The honor system applies.

LPFE is a Windows-only utility focused on bulk renaming files and folders so their paths fall under the 260-character limit. Other tools in this space — Long Path Tool and corz.org's Long Path Fixer — primarily focus on copying or deleting individual long-path files one at a time. LPFE scans your entire drive (local or network), surfaces every offender, and applies rule-based renames across the whole tree in one pass. It also includes a live before/after preview, shallowest-first commit order so parent folders rename before their children, full undo, CSV audit logging, and saved rule templates — features built for IT and records-management work, not one-off file rescues.

OneDrive will not sync any file whose full local path exceeds Windows' limits. The only permanent fix is to shorten the path — rename the parent folders or the file itself so the resulting path is under 260 characters. LPFE points at your local OneDrive folder, flags every file over the limit, and renames them in bulk with a live preview before any change is committed. Once paths are shortened, OneDrive resumes syncing normally. Full OneDrive guide →

SharePoint enforces a 400-character URL limit and a 128-character limit on any single segment, so a path that's fine locally can break on upload. To fix it, shorten the offending file or folder names locally so the resulting SharePoint URL falls under 400 characters. LPFE applies the renames in bulk before you re-upload, instead of having you hand-shorten every offender.

Error 1320 is thrown by the Windows Installer when an installation target path exceeds 260 characters. It typically appears when installing software into a deeply nested user folder or onto a drive with a long folder structure. The permanent fix is to install to a shorter destination (e.g. C:\Apps\) or, if the long path is in the surrounding folder tree you can't avoid, use LPFE to rename the offending parent folders before re-running the installer.

Archive utilities like WinRAR, 7-Zip, and the built-in Windows zip tool enforce the 260-character path limit at extraction time. If your archive contains paths longer than that, extraction either fails outright or silently skips the over-length files. The fix is to extract into a short root path like C:\X\, or — if the archive itself contains folder names that put the total over the limit on their own — extract first and then use LPFE to rename the offenders.

Yes. LPFE is fully compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11. It does not require any registry changes or Group Policy modifications to operate. Simply download, run, and start scanning — no installer or elevated permissions needed to use the preview and rename features.