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File name character limit

I’m seeing “file name too long” errors when transferring files to external drives using Finder. I do tend to give my files very long names.


What is a good rule of thumb for the maximin number of characters in a file name?

iPad Pro (5th generation)

Posted on Apr 14, 2023 7:27 AM

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Posted on Apr 14, 2023 7:47 AM

Niel provides a handy reference for this. I note from it that unless your storage device is using a pretty ancient format, that most formats are around the 255 character limit.


I'm old-school about this, and newer systems are more tolerant, but it used to be some characters had special meaning. I tend to avoid using characters like : ? / \ in file names.

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Apr 14, 2023 7:47 AM in response to Chronic Town

Niel provides a handy reference for this. I note from it that unless your storage device is using a pretty ancient format, that most formats are around the 255 character limit.


I'm old-school about this, and newer systems are more tolerant, but it used to be some characters had special meaning. I tend to avoid using characters like : ? / \ in file names.

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Apr 16, 2023 12:31 PM in response to Limnos

I definitely have had issues with special characters when saving data to external drives. Some have been quite serious. I am a digital artist and lavishly named my .procreate files to remind me what they were. Now that I can get Finder-esque information in the Files app, I don’t need to do that anymore.


Thank you much for your help.

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File name character limit

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