What is the max path limitation?

260 characters
In the Windows API (with some exceptions discussed in the following paragraphs), the maximum length for a path is MAX_PATH, which is defined as 260 characters. A local path is structured in the following order: drive letter, colon, backslash, name components separated by backslashes, and a terminating null character.

Why is there a 256 character limit?

The limit occurs due to an optimization technique where smaller strings are stored with the first byte holding the length of the string. Since a byte can only hold 256 different values, the maximum string length would be 255 since the first byte was reserved for storing the length.

What’s the maximum file path length in Windows?

There is a limitation in Windows, maximum absolute file path length for a file / folder is MAX_PATH (which is defined as 260). The full path of the Microsoft Office document includes the drive letter or server name, and all characters and folder names up to and including the name of the document.

How long is the path of an Excel file?

Some clients have reported not being able to open Microsoft Excel files when the total path length (including all folders names) exceeds 218 characters. For Microsoft Excel files in particular, this has always been an imposed limitation by Microsoft.

What was the file path length before Windows 95?

Before Windows 95, Windows only allowed file names that were eight characters long, with a three character file extension–commonly known as an 8.3 filename. Windows 95 abandoned that to allow long file names, but still limited the maximum path length (which includes the full folder path and the file name) to 260 characters.

Is there a limit to the size of an Excel file?

64-bit environment imposes no hard limits on file size. Workbook size is limited only by available memory and system resources. Beginning with Excel 2016, Large Address Aware functionality lets 32-bit Excel consume twice the memory when users work on a 64-bit Windows operating system.